XOver
by Coquine
Summary: This is my attempt at a BtVSX-Men crossover. When the X-Men are attacked by a mysterious group of demons, Prof. X calls an old acquaintance for help--Rupert Giles. Chapter 8 up! R&R plee-az!
1. Better Circumstances

WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK

Professor Xavier gazed at the bedraggled team seated before him in the War Room. Not one of his students had escaped the wrath of their opponent that night. What he had believed to be a routine investigation of suspicious characters around the local cemetery had apparently turned into an outright brawl. All were nursing wounds of some type, many of which appeared to be slashes of teeth and claws.

"I don't know what happened, Professor," Cyclops said, breaking the silence. All seemed to be in a state of shocked disbelief. "There were only four of them, and eight of us, but we were completely overwhelmed. Their sheer ferocity was incredible."

"What exactly did they look like? Were they mutants?" the professor asked.

The team members all glanced at each other, waiting for someone else to speak up.

"Um, they were big," Iceman volunteered.

"An' fast," added Gambit.

Rogue glanced up at the professor, before dropping her eyes once again to the gashes in her arm. "An' they were strong. Ah mean, Ah held my own for awhile, but they were just too strong." Hearing this from the strongest, not to mention nearly invulnerable, member of the team sent a chill down the others' spines.

Storm was next to speak up. "I do not know what these creatures were, Professor, but they were not any mutants I have ever seen or heard of. They were more like monsters. They were a dark gray color, and their skin was very tough…almost like stone. But their faces, Charles, their faces were things of nightmares. Their eyes were large and utterly black, devoid of any possible feeling. Their teeth and claws were enormous and razor-sharp, and nothing short of demonic," she finished her description with a shudder.

A flicker of recognition passed behind the professor's eyes, gone unnoticed by all.

"They were demons, weren't they?" All except Wolverine.

Professor Xavier took a deep breath, looking contemplative.

"What is it you're not tellin us, Chuck? Now I don't know what the hell those things were, but I know two things. They weren't human, and they weren't mutant. Didn't smell like either one. They smelled like evil."

Xavier regarded the man for several moments before replying. "Jean, would you bring me my directory from my study? I also need the dialing code for Bath, England. It's time I called an old acquaintance."

**********************************************

SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA

Buffy sat at the research table with Willow and Xander, all of them decidedly not researching. They didn't really have much of a reason to at the moment.

"I still can't believe it's over. I mean, not that it was ever really a dire situation, considering who our nemesisis-ses were, but still. It's weird. We didn't even have to do anything!" Buffy suddenly burst out.

"I know, it's like, I feel cheated out of something," Xander added.

"Who would've thought that Jonathon would turn himself in, along with his little buddies. I guess having the weight of a murder on your conscience would do that to you," said Buffy.

"I can't help but feel kinda sorry for the little guy, you know?" said Willow. "I mean, he was always kinda the underdog, and then he actually does something right, and he has to go to jail, and he made his friends mad at him."  
  
"I think he actually got some kind of deal with the D.A. for being the one to bring himself in and turn in the other two. Like a reduced sentence or something," Xander said.

"Well I, for one, think the little monkeys got what they deserved," exclaimed Anya, suddenly popping up from behind the counter. She began sorting through the financial documents she retrieved. "They wreaked a lot of havoc on my shop while they were trying to kill Buffy, or annoy her, or whatever they were doing. They're lucky I haven't taken any vengeance on them for putting the Magic Box in peril."

"That's my girl," Xander grinned. "Always the voice of reason."

The bell above the door tinkled and Dawn walked into the shop, followed by Tara, who had picked her up from her last day of school before winter break.

"Hey Dawnie," Buffy greeted, smiling warmly. "Any teachers decide to be cool and throw a party before break?"

"Only if you consider midterms to be a party," she replied coldly.

Buffy's smile wavered, but she tried again. "I remember a few times we got to do something fun before school was out. It always made the two weeks vacation start off nice."

Dawn met her sisters gaze. "We get a whole month off now. Remember I told you about how the high schools were changing their formats to be more like college?"

"Oh yeah," she said, though her frown revealed her confusion. "Boy it would've been nice if they had prepared us like that, huh guys?"

"You don't even remember me telling you, do you?"

"Dawnie, I--"

"Hey Dawn, come on, we all know how tied up Buffy's been lately…" Willow said, trying to smooth out the situation.

"Huh?!" Buffy's head shot straight up, eyes wide, simultaneously dropping her hands to her lap below the table.

"…what with the nerd trio terrorizing us and patrolling and her job. She's had a lot on her mind lately. But hey! You know about Jonathon turning them in, so now we can all relax a bit, together. Right, Buffy?"

But Buffy's attention was on her wrists, on the still-healing red rings encircling them. She tugged her sleeves down, further covering them. Who would've thought handcuffs would leave such angry marks? Although, when you're straining against them while someone is licking y--

"Buffy!"

"What??" she snapped to attention at the sound of her name being called, or more accurately, yelled. She tried to pinpoint which voice it had belonged to.

"You seemed like you were in your own little world there," Willow smiled weakly. "I was just saying how, now that the nerds are all behind bars, we could afford to take some time off, to, you know, just relax, hang out together."

"Oh. Yeah, absolutely. Perfect opportunity."

Dawn regarded her sister for a moment, before huffing and turning to go sit on the stairs leading up to the stacks. She pulled her portable CD player out of her book bag, slipping on her headphones as she thumbed through one of her teen magazines. The muffled sounds of some nondescript pop music entered the shop as she turned up the volume, effectively cutting off the rest of the world.

Buffy leaned her forehead into her palm, squeezing her eyes shut. If she could only somehow make her understand…

"Um, Buffy?" Tara's quiet voice penetrated her thoughts. "I, um, I looked into that thing that you, um, asked me to look into," she managed to get out, glancing quickly up at Buffy, then at Willow, before trying to find anything at all to look at besides her former lover.

"Oh, um, great, thank you Tara. Um…" Buffy trailed off, not quite sure how to slip away so they could discuss what she'd found in private.

Willow looked between Buffy and Tara. "Hey guys…what's going on? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, n-no, Buffy just needed me to--"

"I needed her to look into something magical for me. I would've asked you, but well, you know," Buffy glanced apologetically at her friend.

"Oh! Well, hey, don't worry about it. I mean, if you needed something, then you needed something. It's not like I expect you all to just stop needing some magical research just because I can't really do it anymore. Seriously it's okay," she reassured her friend. "So what did need help with? I mean, I may not be able to do anything directly, but I may know some stuff that could be helpful."

"Really, Will, it's nothing big. Just kinda something that had piqued my curiosity."

Willow's brow furrowed, sensing that she wasn't quite being told the whole truth. But she decided to let it go, despite the hurt that accompanied Buffy's apparently shutting her out.

"W-well, um, if you wanted to talk about it--" Tara gestured to the door that lead to the training room. Buffy nodded and rose from her chair to follow her.

Just then the bell above the door announced someone's entrance, and Buffy spun around, anticipating the sight of a cursing vampire beneath a smoldering blanket.

She did not, however, anticipate the sight that greeted her.

"Giles?!?!" the voices in the room all exclaimed in unison.

There stood her former watcher, though he was not alone. Next to him stood a tall, exotic woman with mocha skin and long white hair.

"Hello, everyone. I must apologize for my unannounced visit, but something rather important has come up. As much as I wish my seeing all of you again came under better circumstances, I'm afraid this is a business call. I would like to introduce you all to Ororo Munroe, and she has quite a story to tell you.


	2. Explanations

"Wow."

"Yeah. Wow."

The Scoobies once again sat around the research table, collectively dumbfounded.

"So…mutants, huh?" Xander attempted a conversation topic. "And here I thought our little world of demons and vampires and magic was crazy."

"Yes, I must admit it can be somewhat shocking," Ororo replied. "We do try to keep a low profile, however. The general population probably would not react well to such…revelations."

"Yeah…you should stay in Sunnydale awhile longer if you want to see the full effect of denial. Vampires? Oh, pshaw, it's just a snakebite," Xander deadpanned.

"So, Giles, how much do we know about these demons that attacked them?" Buffy asked.

"Unfortunately, not very much," he sighed. "When Charles called me all he could give me was a description, and my limited resources in England didn't prove extremely useful."

"Well, is there anything here that would help?" Willow questioned.

"Yes, that is my hope. I'd like to spend some more time researching the demon texts here at the shop, but unfortunately time is not something we have a lot of."

"What do you mean?" asked Anya. "You said you didn't know anything, so how can you know we don't have time?"

"I didn't say I didn't know anything. I said I didn't know much. But from the description I was given I believe they could be Kynshaar demons, also known as _rien_ demons."  
  
At this Dawn perked up. "Hey I know that word. It's French for 'nothing,' right?"

"Yes, quite right. If they are in fact Kynshaar, then these demons could cause serious damage in very little time. In addition to being very strong and extremely difficult to kill, if given the chance, a _rien_ demon can, well for lack of a better word, suck a person's very essence out of them."  
  
"So, they're like soul eaters or something?" Buffy asked.

"No, no not exactly." Giles removed his glasses and began cleaning them with his shirttail. Uh oh.

"Hey now, Giles. We don't like the cleaning of glasses when you're talking about something we have to fight, okay? It usually doesn't bode well for us," Xander pointed out.  


Giles replaced his glasses and gazed at the group levelly. "These demons do not simply eat your soul. In fact it has nothing to do with souls at all. They can extract your very essence, what makes you who you are. You mind, your heart, your memories, your feelings. It leaves you with absolutely nothing."  


"_Rien_," Dawn murmured.

The group was silent for some time, allowing the gravity of the situation to sink in.

Willow cleared her throat. "Well do we know why they do this? I mean, does it make them stronger? Does it make whoever they--sucked--evil? What's their purpose?"

"No, Willow, you're missing the point. It doesn't make the person anything. Just an empty shell. And it's not just people it can do this to, but also vampires and other demons. It has been speculated that they gain some kind of strength from this event, but they have so rarely been seen or heard of that no real answer has been found. The last time they were recorded was in a brief description of a Watcher in France in the twelfth century, but there was no explanation of why they were there or how they were defeated. If they were defeated."  
  
"Well, you said they were difficult to kill," Buffy interjected. "But not impossible to, right? That's a good place to start as far as I'm concerned."

"Yes, well, the only other information I could find was a short passage in a gypsy text, talking about how their most powerful sorceress killed a Kynshaar demon with a spell that, in essence, turned the creature's power against itself."  
  
"Hey so all we have to do is get them all really mad at each other. Shouldn't be too hard. We'll spread rumors that all their wives are cheating on them with their best friends," Xander joked.

"Yes, well, I highly doubt it will be that simple," Giles sighed. "From what Ororo told me, her teammates are all quite powerful in their own right, and were unable to defeat any one of the demons. The fact of the matter is, we all have to back to New York with Ororo and see what we can do to help."

A chorus of "What?!" resounded in the Magic Box.  
  
"Giles, I have to go to work tomorrow! And the day after that! And who's going to watch Dawn?"  
  
"Yeah, G-Man, I have a building site to run. And Anya has the shop."  
  
"Yes, and I am not leaving the shop. For all I know this is some scheme to take it back from me," Anya huffed.

Giles put held his hands up in an effort to quiet them down. "Wait, wait, let me explain." When the group had calmed somewhat, he began again. "First off, when I say all of us have to go, I meant all of us. Dawn will come with us. As I understand it she's on her school vacation, as well are Willow and Tara. The Xavier Institute has agreed to financially compensate those of you who would suffer from monetary loss during your absence, and Anya, I do believe the shop can close for a few weeks without an apocalypse, and believe me when I say I have no desire to take the shop away from you."

This seemed to quell their objections, but Buffy had one more point to make. "But, Giles, I can't just leave. I'll get fired and I need to keep this job."  
  
The former Watcher looked at his young charge. She didn't seem so young anymore. And she looked tired. He wondered how things were truly going during his absence, but now was not the time to try to discuss it. 

"Buffy, there are other jobs. And if you are in fact working at a fast food restaurant, then there are also quite better jobs. I can help you after this is all said and done."

Buffy sat in silence for some moments. Slinging burgers. Serving rude customers. Double shifts. Greasy fries. She looked up with a wry smile. "Well, gee, twist my arm."

Giles gave a small grin. "Excellent."

He directed his gaze to the rest of the group. "Well then, the rest of us can stay here and gather pertinent books and supplies, and Buffy can go get Spike."

"Spike??" Buffy squeaked. She cleared her throat before continuing. "Why exactly do I have to go get Spike?"

"Yeah, I mean, Captain Peroxide's not coming, is he?" Xander asked.

"As a matter of fact, I hoped he would. These demons are incredibly strong. We need all the fighters we can get."

"Well…well what makes you think he'll go? You know, he might have something better to…do." Buffy gave a small frown. Off the others' disbelieving looks, she stood up from the table. "Yeah, yeah, I'll go get him," she grumbled. "Be back in a few." She slipped her jacket on and strode out the door.

"This Spike," Ororo said. "He is a vampire?"  
  
"Yeah. Well, as much as he can be anyway," Xander scoffed.

"Oh yes. The government chip Rupert told me about. So he works with you then?"  
  
"Yeah, even when we don't want him to. Nobody really likes him much around here."

"No, you don't like him much around here," Dawn pointed out. "I like him. He doesn't treat me like a kid."

"I like him too," Anya piped up. "His being a demon really is a breath of fresh air around here." Xander looked over at his fiancee. "What? Just because I'm human now too doesn't mean I don't still like a variety of company," she shrugged.  
  
Xander slowly shook his head. "Anyway, Spike helps Buffy patrol, and can be useful in a fight."

Giles glanced up from the book he was reading. "Willow, would you mind checking into those gypsy spells I told you about? The book is there in my suitcase."

Willow stiffened in her seat, before shooting a furtive glance in Tara's direction. "Um, no."

Now Giles looked up. "What? Why not?"  
  
"Um, I can't." His continued gaze begged explanation. "I've um, kinda sworn off magic for awhile. I kinda got into some trouble."

Giles gaze turned to a look of worry. "Is everything all right?"  
  
"Um, short answer, no, not really. I got slightly, um…addicted to magic. But I'm getting better. No spells for thirty-two days," she smiled slightly.

Giles sighed and began rubbing his glasses. "Well I wish I could say I was surprised. I was getting rather…concerned about your magical habits. But I am glad that you seem to be working through it."

"Yeah. I'm working."

Tara caught Willow's eye and gave her a small smile that made all the work worth it.


	3. Recruiting

Sighing heavily, Buffy shoved open the door of Spike's crypt. She strode up behind the vampire, who was sitting in his chair in front of the television.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey yourself," he replied, not looking away from the screen.

Rolling her eyes, Buffy stepped between him and the television. He gazed up at her then, amusement in his eyes. "Get up. We have work to do."

He smirked. "And who says romance is dead."

She bit back the retort before it popped out. "Seriously. Giles is back. It seems we're going to take a trip to New York, help out some people with a demon problem."

"Oh we are, are we? Thanks for letting me know," he said as he stood up from the worn chair, brushing past her to walk to his makeshift kitchen.

He took a pack of cigarettes out of the carton sitting on top of the refrigerator, ripping it open and sliding one out. He placed it between his lips before walking back over to her.

"So what's the story then?" he asked as he grabbed his duster off the floor and began fishing through its pockets. He found his lighter in one of them and flicked it open, igniting the end of his cigarette. "You said Giles is back in town? Must be important then, yeah?"

She nodded. "He says it is. They're, um, Krishna demons?" Spike arched one eyebrow. "No…Kynshaar demons. Yeah, that's it. Said they were pretty nasty, all life essence stealing, and strong and tough to kill. We need the muscle."

He grinned at that, then took a slow step towards her. "So…you need my muscle, do you?" he leered, tongue curling behind his teeth.

Buffy crossed her arms, giving a tight smile. "Funny. You should take that show on the road. Far, far down the road."

Spike just continued to look at her. She was wearing annoyed expression number twenty-eight, and looking beautiful as always doing it. He reached a tentative hand to her face, brushing a strand of her recently shorn locks away from her cheek. Buffy flinched, but he still slowly dragged his thumb across her cheek.

"Stop it," she whispered. She was already desperately trying not to look at the strip of exposed flesh from throat to waistline that peeked between the two sides of his unbuttoned shirt, so she directed her gaze to his face, also a mistake. The adoration that always showed so clearly in his crystal blue eyes when he looked at her like that, it made her feel…well, something. It made her feel something. Anything.

Her eyes drifted closed as his hand ran a trail down the side of her neck, over her shoulder and down her arm, lightly grasping her wrist and lifting her hand to his lips. He placed a silken kiss on her upturned palm, before pushing her sleeve up over her wrist to run his tongue along the red marks left there by the handcuffs the night before.

This seemed to bring Buffy back to reality as she snatched her hand away from his mouth. "Get whatever stuff you need together and let's go," she said before turning away from him and walking towards the door.

He followed, coming up close behind her. He heard her sharp intake of breath at his nearness, and took a deep breath of his own, inhaling her scent. He smirked slightly at the faint smell of her arousal, loving how she always seemed to be ready for him. Only him. She didn't smell this sweet around her Captain Cardboard. She never smells like this around Xander. No, she doesn't love him. But she wants him. They both know it, and neither deny it. It's as good a place to start as any.

Spike drew himself up behind her, pressing his chest lightly into her back. He was rewarded with her head leaning back to rest on his shoulder, exposing her neck to his lips. He kissed slowly up her neck, reaching around in front of her to slide his hand inside her jacket, up over her breasts and up her throat, cupping her jaw and turning her head to kiss her lips. He grasped her hips in both hands and ground himself against her bottom, both moaning softly at the contact.

Abruptly Spike spun her around and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her tightly against him. Buffy snaked her arms around his neck, never breaking the kiss. She parted her lips and slid her tongue across his lips, begging entrance, to which he readily complied. He met her tongue with his own, savoring her taste. He then lifted her slightly off the ground, and walked backwards towards the trapdoor opening to the lower half of his crypt.

Buffy broke away from the kiss with a gasp for much needed air. She saw his destination before protesting. "Spike, wait--" She was cut off as his mouth attacked her neck, kissing and licking until she could no longer form speech. He set her on her feet and began descending the ladder, looking up at her as he did so.  


__

Please don't walk away, please don't walk away he thought as he held her gaze. It was, in fact, exactly what she was trying to tell herself to do, yet the smoldering look in his eyes rooted her feet to the floor.

When she stepped toward the ladder, only then did he continue his descent. The moment her feet were on the ground she found herself in his arms again, this time the kissing rougher, more desperate. Had it really only been last night the last time they were together? It felt like they'd crossed the Sahara without water, and had found an oasis.

Spike slid his hands inside her jacket and pushed it down over her shoulders, while Buffy mimicked his actions with his shirt, exposing his chest and back. She ran her hands up his arms, squeezing his biceps as he walked them both towards the bed. The back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress, and they fell backwards with him landing on top of her.

He continued kissing her as he worked his hand up under her shirt, finding one firm breast and kneading it with his palm, tweaking her painfully erect nipple. Buffy gasped as the pleasure shot warmly down her stomach to settle between her legs, trying to form coherent thought. She knew she was trying to say something.

"Wait!" she breathed, clamping a hand around his wrist, stilling his movements. He looked down into her face with lust-glazed eyes. "They're waiting for us. I was just gonna come and get you then meet them back there."

"Well," he drawled, "guess what?"

"What?"  


"Seems we ran into some vamps on the way there. They got right nasty," he said as he gripped the front of her blouse in his hand, then ripped the fabric away from her body.

"Hey!--" Her sounds of protest were cut off by his mouth crashing down on hers, and then she was lost.

His hands roved over her body, sliding up her waist to cup her breasts, then down her arms to grasp her wrists and guide them around his neck. She readily complied, running her hands down over his back, feeling the muscle there as it rippled and tensed with his every move. She brought them down over his shoulders to feel the smooth planes of his chest, then on down over his abdominal muscles, smiling as they twitched beneath her fingertips.

When Spike's lips left her own she almost moaned in protest, until they closed over one pert nipple, sucking lightly while flicking the tip of his tongue back and forth, sending shots of pleasure zinging through her body. Her hands moved lower to his belt buckle, quickly unfastening first it and then the button fly of his jeans. When her hand closed around his rock-hard shaft, Spike lost his rhythm completely and bucked against her. She began to slowly stroke him, paying special attention to the areas that she knew from experience made him moan. Problem was, he knew all those places on her as well.

Spike regained some composure and grabbed her wrists in his hands, stretching them up over her head before holding them both with one hand. The other slid slowly down her arm, then lightly grazing his fingertips over her face, down her throat and between her breasts, never ceasing until he reached her own jeans. He made quick work of the fly, then pushed them down over her hips as she lifted her bottom up to help him.

He parted her satin folds with two fingers, sliding a third right down her center, making her buck and moan. He leaned down and kissed her deeply, tongue probing her mouth as his finger probed her heat, finding her clit with familiar ease, rubbing her lightly at first, applying more pressure as her kisses became deeper, her moans more frantic.

The sounds she was making and the way she smelled and the way she felt…it was just becoming too much for him to bear. He ripped his mouth away from hers and sat up, shoving his jeans down to his knees, then gripping the fabric of hers and tearing them off over her feet, sending her sandals flying across the room.

He gripped her knees and spread her legs apart, diving forward to taste her, licking one long path up her slit, continuing up her stomach and over one breast, finally coming back to her lips. Buffy wrapped her legs around his thighs, pressing her wet heat against him. He reached down to position himself at her entrance, both of them stopping all other movement to savor this particular moment.

The velvet of his head pressed against her folds, slipping just inside of her. Both held their breath as he slid slowly all the way in, stretching her in just that right way, squeezing him exquisitely. Spike leaned his forehead against hers, her arms coming up to grasp around his shoulders, one hand against the back of his neck. He held her head between both hands, then began to rock, pressing himself as deeply as he could get inside her, then withdrawing a little more each time.

Soon he was slamming into her full force, she raising her hips to meet his each time. Their lower halves were all that was moving, for their arms remained locked around each other, their foreheads still touching. Her gasping breaths were like little flames dancing across his face, and he opened his eyes to see her face contorted with pleasure. A moment later she opened her own eyes, as if sensing him looking at her. 

The pleasure was building more and more, with each powerful thrust both grinding against her clit and touching her sweet spot within, and Buffy felt her body draw itself up taught as a bowstring. The pleasure increased as she tightened around him, and Spike was near the edge himself. He withdrew almost all the way, and began pumping only the tip in and out, deliberately teasing both of them. He kept it up until the look in her eyes and the feeling in his body told him to let go. He suddenly drove as deeply inside her as possible, and she cried out, feeling the orgasm spread up through her body like wildfire. Spike soon followed as she clamped down around him, roaring as he shot into her again and again. The feel of him coming into her was enough to send Buffy over the edge again, rippling one more orgasm over her body.

They stayed like that for some moments afterwards, catching their breath, figuratively and literally. With a groan, Spike disentangled their arms and slipped out of her, rolling over onto his back.

Buffy giggled softly. Spike turned to look at her. "Here what's this now?"

She looked over at him. "We made the bed this time."

Spike grinned. "Yeah, I suppose we did." He sighed. "And now we're gonna have to get off of it, aren't we, luv?"

"Yeah we are," she sighed as she sat up and rolled off the bed. Spike watched her as she got dressed, except for the ripped blouse. Instead the simply zipped up her jacked all the way.

He got up and followed suit, then gathered some things together in to a small black duffel bag. "Right then. Off we go?"

She nodded. "Just one more thing," she said, smiling sweetly as she walked up to him. She drew up close to him, and just as he was leaning down to kiss her lips, Buffy reared back and punched him in the mouth.

"'Ey! What in bloody hell was that for?" he yelled.

Before he could protest further, Buffy reached up with her torn blouse and wiped away the blood from his lip. She held it up for him to see. "Bunch of nasty vampires, remember?" she grinned.

She should have been suspicious when Spike's face lit up. "Oh yeah, right!" he said just before he popped her in the nose.

"Ow!!! Shit, Spike that hurt! Why'd you have to go for the nose?!"

"Yeah, it does bloody hurt, now doesn't it, Slayer?" he smirked.

Still holding her nose, she scowled at him, before turning and going up the ladder. He followed her up, still laughing as she shoved him out the door.


	4. A Long Trip

As they made their way back to the Magic Box, Buffy relayed the full story to Spike. He had never heard of the Kynshaar, but when she told him what they could do, he seemed to recognize something.

Spike shuddered. "Yeah, I've heard of demons that can do that sort of thing. Steal a person's entire self? Never knew if I believed it or not…thought maybe it was the kind of story they tell to all the naughty little demons to keep them in line. 'You better watch out, or I'll send 'em after you, suck you into nothing!'" he scolded, pointing a stern finger at an invisible minion.

Buffy shrugged. "Giles said there wasn't much information on them that he could find. They're all still researching back at the shop."

The last few blocks were traveled in an easy silence. When they entered the shop, Giles looked up from the book he was flipping through. "Buffy, good, I was hoping you'd…good lord are you all right?" he asked, concerned, as he took in both she and Spike's disheveled appearances.

Buffy tensed for a moment, before shrugging. "Yeah…we're fine. Ran into a few vamps on the way here. But don't worry. My new shirt was the only casualty," she said, holding up her tattered and slightly bloodied blouse.

"Oh, well, good then," Giles said distractedly. "As I was saying, I was hoping you would get here soon. I am afraid we're going to have to leave as soon as possible."  
  
"Why, what's up?" she asked as she made her way over to the research table, glancing over the various opened books. "Find anything new out? Like ways to kill them?"

"No, unfortunately, nothing more on that. We did, however, find out some more of the history of these creatures. Apparently, they only come out once a month, the week of the waning moon, their strength peaking at the new moon. After that, they go back into hiding. It seems they are very good at that, in fact. No one has any record of discovering them in their…nest or whatever. But we still don't know what these particular Kynshaar's motives are. In fact, we have not been able to figure out any sort of pattern in any of the previously recorded attacks. They come, wreak a little havoc, leave a few people completely void of their former selves, then they disappear. It's all very unclear," he finally sighed.

They were all startled by Spike's sudden laughter. "What's so unclear about it? They're demons! That's was most demons set out to do when they wake up in the morning." He thought for a moment. "Or evening."

"Is that your goal when you awake?" asked Ororo coolly.

Spike for the first time took notice of the new face in the room. He cocked his head to the side, regarding her for a moment before answering. "No. Not so much anymore." He narrowed his eyes at her. "I doubt the Scoobies here failed to inform you of the little chip I have in my head. So why do you ask?"

She pursed her lips slightly. "I understand that you now help Buffy and Giles, but you will forgive me if I do not entirely trust you." Her voice dropped a level. "I have dealt with your kind before."

Slightly surprised, Giles turned to look at Ororo. "Really? You made no mention of it before."  
  
She looked down into her lap. "I do not especially enjoy discussing it. The vampire Dracula once had me under his thrall. He…he nearly turned me."

"Oh!" Buffy piped up. "I killed him. But don't feel too bad. He got us pretty good, too. Xander was his bug-eater."

"Hey!" the aforementioned bug-eater yelped. "I'll have you know that the Mast-- that _he_ could be very persuasive!" He slumped down in his chair, sulking. Anya stroked his arm soothingly.

"It's okay, sweetie. Don't forget that he had Buffy all thralled up too…she even let him bite her."

Buffy 'humphed' before crossing her arms over her chest. "Geez…never gonna live that one down am, I? You let a vampire take a little nibble and suddenly--" she stopped short as she made the mistake of glancing over at Spike, who was smirking widely at her. "Hey! So!" she said a little too loudly, clapping her hands together. "When do you think we should be leaving?"

"Now. I was going to have everyone go get packed as soon as you got here," Giles said, picking up his own duffel. "Everyone meet us at the park in twenty."

"Um, the park?" Willow asked, brows furrowed. "Shouldn't we maybe, I don't know, see about plane tickets or something?"

Ororo smiled at her. "There is no need. Transportation has been provided," she said as she stood, making her way to the door with Giles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Half an hour later, everyone stood in a large clearing in the middle of the park, looking around expectantly.

Tara broke the silence. "I hope I packed enough. Giles wasn't exactly clear on how long this would take."

"Probably cause he didn't know how long it would take. We still now next to nothing about these things, which I hope changes soon. I don't like going in blind," Buffy stated.

"Suits me fine," said Spike. "From what you lot tell me, it sounds like we could get a decent spot of violence."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, Giles walked up with Ororo.

"Good, you're all here. Shall we be on our way then?"

"Uh, G-man? Maybe you need to update your prescription, cause I'm not seeing anything to be on our way in," Xander pointed out.

Giles grinned and looked over at his companion. Ororo returned the smile before turning around and speaking to the air behind her. "Disengage cloak," she said clearly.

The air seemed to shimmer before them, suddenly revealing a black jet. A jet. In the middle of the park. All the Scoobies continued to watch, as Ororo produced a small remote from her jacket pocket. She pressed a button, and a hatch opened on the underside of the aircraft, lowering a set of stairs.

She turned to them. "Shall we?" She walked towards the stairs, everyone following dumbly.

When they were all standing inside the jet, Dawn broke the silence with a small "wow."

Ororo made her way to the pilot seat, Giles taking the autopilot seat next to her. "There are only six seats in the back. I am afraid one of you will have to sit on the floor."

There was a sudden rush to find a seat, like a game of musical chairs. Buffy lost. She scowled down at Spike, who was sitting in one of the two edge seats in the small row. He grinned smugly up at her, crossing his ankles out in front of him and lacing his fingers behind his head, leaning up to look at her.

Calmly, Buffy grabbed Spike by the lapels of his duster, hauling him to his feet. "'Ey!" he protested. "I got there first, fair an' square!"

"Well if we crash, you won't need the seatbelt as much as I would," she said as she turned them around, pushing him down to the floor in front of her, taking her seat and fastening the buckles.

He scowled up at her, before spinning around and leaning his back up against her legs, hard. She grunted and smacked the back of his head. He looked at her over his shoulder. "Well if I don't get a seat then I at least want a backrest!"

"Whatever," she muttered, before crossing her arms and sitting back, shifting her legs to where Spike's back leaned on the chair, one leg on each side of his shoulders.

The rest of the Scoobies watched the exchange silently. No one wanted to say anything about Buffy's apparent complacence with Spike's positioning. Xander especially took notice, staring at the pair who were sitting catty-cornered from his own chair. Something was going on, he knew. He just had no idea what. He only knew that Buffy was acting weird lately, and Spike was around an awful lot. If he was doing something to her--

His thoughts were cut off by the sudden jarring of the aircraft. They all leaned forward to look out the front windows, and saw that they were taking off vertically from the park. When they reached proper altitude, there was a shift in the jet's weight, before they took off straight forward. They continued to climb high into the air, above any clouds, and still higher. Once they reached cruising altitude, Ororo spoke to her passengers.

"I will be turning off the interior lights now. When traveling long distances, we use stealth mode. We are flying at about ten thousand feet higher than any commercial aircraft, but we don't like to take chances. The government does not much appreciate any unidentified aircraft in U.S. airspace. We should be in New York in about two hours."

"Two hours?" Xander asked. "But that must mean we're flying at, like, a thousand miles an hour!"

Ororo's only reply was a small smile.

Once again, the group in the back sat dumbfounded.

"Wow," Dawn reiterated.

The rest of the trip was made in near silence, everyone conscious of their apparent 'stealth' mode. Buffy glanced down at the vampire sitting quietly between her legs. She was surprised he hadn't complained about his having to sit on the floor, or having to be silent. She giggled very softly to herself, thinking he was probably just fine with where he was.

Her near-silent laugh went unnoticed by all, except of course, for Spike. He turned to look at her over his shoulder, smiling softly at her. Her own smile lingered on her face as she looked down on him, before realizing she was actually smiling back at him. She quickly looked up and away from him.

Smirking, Spike turned back around. Willow was nodding off in the seat in front of him, and he quickly glanced at the rest of them. Xander and Anya were holding hands and looking at each other in the dim light. How sweet. He looked to his left at Dawn and Tara, who sat in the row with Buffy. Dawn was asleep, and Tara was trying to read one of her spell books, squinting in the near dark, illuminated only by the instrumental lights from the cockpit.

Time to have a little fun. Slowly, so as not to alert the owner of the foot he was reaching for, he grasped Buffy's ankle in his right hand. He felt her tense, but he continued to lift her foot and remove her sandal. He heard her gasp softly as he ran his index finger down the sole of her foot. He then grasped her foot tightly with both hands, his fingers pressing firmly against the arch of her foot, massaging the tightness he found there. He ran his right hand up the top of her foot, before curling his fingers forward over her toes, popping the joints.

He looked up quickly at the sharp cracking sounds they made, to see if anyone noticed. They didn't. He continued to rub her foot gently with his left hand, while his right traveled to her ankle, massaging her Achilles tendon before traveling up the leg of her jeans, kneading the muscles of her calf.

Buffy's eyes rolled back into her head, stifling a moan. She found herself silently cursing and thanking whoever brought flared jeans back into fashion, as they allowed Spike's very talented hand free reign up to her knee. God, she was sick. She was getting all hot and bothered over a foot massage…well, okay, she had to give herself some credit--it had evolved into a leg massage also…in front of all of her friends, her sister, and her watcher. Oh, and a complete stranger.

Spike grit his teeth as the faint scent of her arousal reached his nose. He was sitting right between her slightly spread legs. Maybe teasing her hadn't been the smartest thing to do while he was so close to temptation. He reached between his own legs to discreetly adjust his now erect cock. It wasn't discreet enough for Buffy to miss, though that was probably just because she had been staring over his shoulder at that very spot. She grinned to herself. Time to have a little fun.

She quickly hooked her left knee over his shoulder, startling him. She shook her foot expectantly. He used his free hand to slip off her sandal, but before he could grab her foot, it slid down his torso to the bulge in front of his jeans. She bit back a laugh as he jumped nearly a foot off the floor. He sucked in a breath through his teeth when she began rubbing slowly, up and down the denim covering his shaft.

Just as suddenly as she did it, she stopped, then set her foot back on the floor next to him. He huffed lightly, then twisted his torso around to stare at her. She smiled a smile that said, 'mess with me, willya?'

He glared at her a moment before his hand darted forward, reaching between her legs and quickly running his thumb up her denim-covered quim, pressing the seam of her jeans against her clit. Her eyes widened comically as she gasped, too shocked at the sudden movement to do anything about it before he pulled his hand away. She gaped down at him, and he smirked back at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

She pouted, scowling at him as she slumped down in her chair slightly. Dammit. She thought she had won that one. She leaned her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes. Spike turned back around and settled against the chair once more. Buffy's shift downward had jutted her knees out slightly past the seat of her chair, and he slouched down and tentatively leaned his cheek against her inner thigh. When she didn't protest, he sighed softly and closed his eyes, trying to ignore his hard-on. This was going to be a long trip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Or, maybe not that long. Especially if you fell asleep, which is what pretty much everyone in the back had done. Ororo saw this, and nodded to Giles, gesturing toward the back. He turned and smiled slightly at the sleeping group. "All right everyone," he said loudly, trying to wake them. "Wake up. We're h--" his voice trailed off when he noticed Buffy's sleeping form. And Spike's sleeping form. Which looked very much to be sleeping on Buffy's leg.

Before he could think any more about it, Xander and Anya stirred. Xander stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly. "Whoa, sorry about that. I didn't even realized I fell asleep."  
  
Willow was now arching her back with a stretch. "Gosh I didn't either. Must have been the trip. You know, it was all dark and quiet back here, with the slight humming of the engines and the little vibrations that tell you you're moving." She grinned slightly. "I always fall asleep during long car rides."

Tara smiled softly at her, which she returned. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment longer, before Dawn's voice piped up.  
  
"Yeah, Mom always used to have to drive me around the block to get me to fall asleep when I was a baby, remember Buffy?" She turned expectantly to her sister, only to find her eyes still closed in sleep, her head bent down at an odd angle to lean against her own shoulder.

It was then that the rest of the Scoobies noticed Buffy and Spike's positioning. She was slouched down in her seat, her legs still on either side of Spike's shoulders to accommodate him, his head leaning against her left thigh, the fingers of his right hand curled loosely around the ankle of her bare foot.

Dawn, though slightly surprised at the intimate scene, ignored the shocked looks on the rest of the faces in the plane. She reached out one hand per head and rapped her knuckles against the skulls of her sister and the vampire. "Hey, wake up, we're here!" she said loudly. Okay, so maybe she hit Buffy's head a little harder than she had to, but she was making up for sixteen years of rude awakenings from her older sister. Plus, you know, Slayer strength probably required a little extra force to get her attention.

Spike awoke with a start, groggy eyes staring blankly ahead of him. Buffy groaned into wakefulness as she opened her eyes, meeting her sister's expectant gaze. "Oh, sorry Dawnie, I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep." She frowned slightly, trying to figure out why her leg felt cold. She looked down expecting to see Spike's head, where he had lain it two hours before. She knew she should have told him to move, but at the time the weight of his head against her thigh felt…comforting. When she looked down instead of his bleached locks meeting her gaze, she saw a wet spot darkening the denim of her jeans.

"Oh, gross!" she whined when she realized what it was. She shoved at Spike's shoulders, sending the still sleep-fuzzed vampire sprawling to the side. He caught himself, then turned to look at her with bleary eyes.

"What?" he asked, voice hoarse from sleep.

Buffy shook herself when she realized she'd been staring at him. His hair was mussed on the side that was leaning against her thigh, and the way he looked at her and the sound of his voice was exactly like when they woke up…after. "You drooled on me!" she accused.

Still slightly confused, he looked at her leg. "Oh. Sorry."

Meanwhile, the gang watched the exchange in mute fascination. Buffy wasn't going ballistic over the fact that he had slept on her leg, but that he had drooled on it. Spike was apologizing for drooling on her. And why the hell was his hand still on her foot?

"So are we here then?" The question came from Anya's blunt voice, seemingly oblivious to everyone's astonishment. They all snapped their attention to her.

"Uh, yes," Giles said quickly, then looked back over at the pair in question. Spike had moved away from Buffy's chair, sitting cross-legged in the aisle facing him. Buffy once again had her sandals on.

Everyone gathered their bags and headed down the staircase. When they were all out, they stood in awe at the enormous Xavier estate. Even at night, the mansion loomed over them it all its glory.

"Wow," whispered Dawn, who seemed to have become the spokesperson for all the Scoobies' amazement.

Ororo's voice brought them back to reality. "I must take the jet to the hanger. Please go in. They're expecting you."


	5. Meeting New People

The Scoobie gang stood on the landing in front of the doors to the Xavier Institute. After a few moments, Buffy pointed out: "Um, there's no doorbell."

Spike and Giles both rolled their eyes in a way that could roughly be translated as "Americans!" Giles stepped forward and grasped the large brass knocker that hung on one of the double doors, banging it three times.

"Oh, right," a sheepish Buffy muttered.

A few moments later, the door swung open to reveal a tall man with red sunglasses. "Hello. You must be Mr. Giles and," he took a look at the rest of the gang, "everyone. I'm Scott Summers. Please come in. Professor Xavier is expecting you." He stepped to the side to allow them to pass. Everyone walked in, except for Spike.

Scott gave the bleached and leather clad man a once-over, before asking, "What's the matter?"

Spike smirked at the man, instantly disliking him, and instantly feeling the need to get a rise out of him. "Sorry mate, but general invites don't work with us vamps. I need a personal invitation to come in."

Scott stood there for a moment, looking slightly taken aback, to Spike's approval. "I'm sorry, did you say 'vamp?' As in, 'vampire?'"

"Well, yeah." Spike looked around Scott at Giles. "What, Rupes, you didn't tell them who all you'd be bringin'? Not very polite of you."

"No, I did," Giles said, becoming flustered. "Scott, I told your professor that I'd be bringing Spike, who, though he is a vampire, would be working with us."

"He is right, Scott," came Ororo's voice from behind them. "There is no cause for alarm." She looked directly at Spike. "Please come in, Spike."

He smiled slightly as he stepped over the threshold. "An' here I thought you didn't trust me."

"I do not," she said calmly. She turned and walked into the mansion. "If you would follow me, the professor is waiting."

As the group made their way into the foyer, it became very obvious to them that this 'professor' guy they'd be working with was a very rich man.

"This guy must be loaded!" exclaimed the ever-blunt Anya. "I can't wait to meet him if he's this rich. Ooh, honey, do you think he'll give us large sums of money as a wedding present?"

"Ahn, I really don't think--"

"Well of course you can expect a wedding present. That is, as long as we get invited," a voice interrupted Xander's chastisement.

Anya smiled brightly down at the man who spoke. He was bald, and sitting in a…well, no one was quite sure what he was sitting in, but it was floating.

"Hello. I'm Anya Jenkins. Are you this professor guy we keep hearing about?"

Professor Xavier smiled at the young woman. "Yes, I am indeed 'this professor guy.' My name is Charles Xavier, and this is my school, as well as my home. I believe you've already met Ororo and Scott. If you'll all have a seat," he gestured to the many couches arranged in the middle of the room, "I'll call down the rest of the team and we can all be properly introduced. From what Mr. Giles tells me, we could be working together for some time, and I feel I must first apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you."

"Well hey, if you asked me if I'd rather be home slinging burgers and slaying two-bit vamps or on a trip to New York, you can guess which one I'd pick," Buffy said.

Xavier chuckled. "Well, thank you, that puts my mind at ease. Please, sit."

Everyone quickly found a seat. "Scootch on over, Niblet. You know I always get to sit next to the prettiest girl in the room." Dawn grinned up at Spike, then scooted over next to the armrest. Spike plopped down next to her, stretching his arm over the back of the couch behind her. He made the fit on the couch a tight squeeze, with Giles, Buffy, and Dawn already sitting there, and Buffy elbowed him in the ribs trying to give herself some more room.

Spike glared at Buffy for a moment before turning to Dawn and whispering, "'Course that also sits me next to the bitchiest girl in the room." Dawn giggled. Spike kicked his boot-clad feet out in front of him, setting them on the coffee table, and Buffy proceeded to shove them off with her own feet.

"Do you think you could stop being a jackass for two seconds?!" she hissed. "And don't think I didn't hear that little comment, either," she glared at him.

Spike's only response was a small chuckle.

In the meantime, the professor had closed his eyes, sending a telepathic signal to the rest of the X-Men telling them to meet in the sitting room.

"You called, prof?" asked a young man with sandy blonde hair as he descended the grand staircase. He was soon followed by a beautiful woman with fiery red hair, then a dark-haired man and a woman with a white stripe in her chestnut locks. They also sat down on the couches facing the Scoobie gang.

"Yes, Bobby, these are the people I was telling you all about. They have agreed to help us with our current situation," the professor explained.

Bobby grinned widely at the group. "Well we're much obliged. Whatever these things are, we pretty much had our asses handed to us by them." He jerked a thumb towards the woman sitting next to him. "Hell, even Rogue here got whupped!"

"An' Ah swear, Bobby, you say one more word and ya'll are gonna be the one gettin' whupped!" the woman called Rogue drawled in a thick southern accent. She punctuated her sentence with a punch to Bobby's shoulder.

"Ow! Geez, watch that super strength, willya?" he complained, rubbing his now bruised shoulder.

"If you two are quite done, perhaps one of you could tell me where Logan or Kitty--" the professor was cut off by the sounds of someone bounding loudly down the stairs.

"Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry," said the girl as she skittered into the room. She was small in stature, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair. She looked to be maybe a couple of years older than Dawn. "I was just getting ready to take a shower when you called cause I mean I didn't know that they would be here so soon and then I had to find my clothes but I had already put them in the hamper so I had to find something else--"

"Breathe, sugah!" Rogue cut off the girl's ranting.

The girl took a deep breath before speaking again. "Hi! My name is Katherine Pryde, but pretty much everyone calls me Kitty."

"Hi," Dawn replied, smiling. It looked like there was going to be at least one person she could hang out with. This trip was looking better by the minute.

"Well," Xavier began. "Since it seems no one knows where Logan has gotten to, or how long he will be gone, we may as well begin. I'd say introductions are in order all around." He looked expectantly at his guests.

Giles spoke up. "Yes, of course. Ah, my name is Rupert Giles. I've studied the occult all my life, and was recruited by a Council in England to become a Watcher, sort of a teacher and mentor to Slayers. I no longer work for the Watcher's Council, but you could say I'm still Buffy's unofficial Watcher." He looked next to Buffy, who smiled back at him.

She turned and addressed the group. "Um, hi. I'm Buffy Summers. I've been the Slayer since I was fifteen. It's…like a calling, I guess." She paused, not really knowing what else to say. "Uh, I pretty much kill demons, occasionally avert apocalypses. Oh, and I've died a couple of times." She waited a moment to let that one sink in.

"Boy, that whole resurrection thing really gets around, huh, Jean…Scottie?" Bobby looked across at Scott and the redheaded woman sitting next to him.

"Very funny, Robert," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Tell me, Buffy," the professor leaned forward in his…uh, chair thing. "What exactly comes with being a Slayer? I must say, I'm fairly familiar with most types of super abilities, and the people who posses them, but I had never before heard of vampire slayers before I met Rupert. I'm quite interested in learning more about you."

"Uh, well…I'm really strong. And I heal fast. I kind of have a natural fighting ability, but I still have to train to keep myself in top form, you know, keep all my instincts honed. I can also sort of sense when there's a demon near me, especially vampires. Oh, and sometimes I get these really weird prophetic dreams when something big is about to go down. I just call it the whole slayer package," she shrugged.

"Fascinating. When you say prophetic, do you mean they're almost precognitive? Like you're seeing the future?" Xavier asked.

"Well…not exactly seeing the future. The dreams are really confusing most of the time, and by the time we figure them out whatever is going to happen is already happening. But they do help us out."

"You also said you could 'sense' demons? Is it like a telepathic connection, or..?"

"No, nothing like that. It's not anything that's in my head. It's more like…in my gut. I can just feel when they're around. After awhile, I can even tell if it's a specific demon or a vampire. And, you know, if I know them personally, I can tell exactly who it is. It becomes a very…particular feeling."

The rest of the Scoobies immediately thought of Angel, but Buffy's thoughts were focused on the vampire sitting next to her, whose presence she was always extremely aware of.

"Well, this is all just so interesting to me, but I think my inquiries are slowing the introductions. Forgive me. Please continue," Xavier said, gesturing to the person sitting next to Buffy.

He sat for a moment, before simply saying, "Spike," and looking expectantly over at Dawn.

Buffy once again elbowed him in the ribs. He glared at her, then sighed. "My name is Spike. Or William the Bloody. I'm--"

"Or Captain Peroxide!" Xander exclaimed, interrupting the vampire. Spike glared at him. "Boy, if looks could kill…oh wait, you can't even do that, can you, Spikey?" he jeered.

Spike closed his eyes and took a calming breath. "As I was sayin', I'm a vampire." He looked up to gauge their reactions, and was slightly disappointed to find not much of one. "Been around about a hundred twenty-eight years, killed a whole bunch of people, had a grand old time of it, too, until these government wankers captured me and put a chip in my head that zaps me anytime I try to hurt a human, found out I could still hurt demons, and pretty much been workin' with this lot ever since."

"Yeah, you know, except for that whole Adam thing and you trying to kill us," Xander pointed out.

"Oh, sod off, whelp. I can count more than a few times I also happened to save your sorry ass."

"Excuse me! I believe Dawn is next!" Buffy yelled, effectively shutting down the soon to be quarrel. "Dawnie?"  


"Hi, I'm Dawn Summers, Buffy's sister. Only, not really because I was originally this mystical green energy that was the key to opening the door to all realities and these monk guys made me human out of Buffy's blood so that she could protect me from this skanky hobag of a hellgod that was trying to kill me and use my blood to open the doorway to her hell dimension but Buffy stopped it cause we had the same blood so she all died saving the world and after that the key wasn't in me anymore so now I'm just you're run-of-the-mill teenager," she finished with a shrug.

Everyone in the room sat in dumbfounded silence.

"Well sugah, Ah think you topped all of us on that one," Rogue chuckled.

"Yeah, and now I have to go next. Thanks a lot Dawn," Xander sulked. Dawn giggled at his forlorn face.

"I'm Xander Harris, carpenter slash construction worker slash foreman. I don't have any special powers or anything, but I've been there with the slayage since the beginning. Original Scoobie member here." He smiled at Willow, then Buffy.

"I'm Willow Rosenberg, also an original Scoobie. I'm a practicing Wicca…only, not so much anymore, due to um, personal issues." She shifted uncomfortably, then was eased by the touch of Tara's hand to hers. "I'm also really good with computers, hacking into systems and stuff like that."  
  
"I'm Tara Maclay, and I've been a W-Wiccan since I was young. My mother was a witch also. I can also, um, r-read auras and stuff like that," she smiled softly.

"I'm Anya Jenkins. I introduced myself already, but you've probably forgotten. It's okay. The human mind is a very fragile thing. I'm a former vengeance demon, recently human, even more recently engaged to Xander. Did you see my ring?" She thrust her left hand out for the other occupants of the room to inspect. She smiled widely. "We're getting married soon. I can't wait until the honeymoon so we can have lots of post-marital sex, and then I can find out if it's any different from all the premarital sex we've been having." She looked around excitedly at the shocked faces in the room. Her smile wavered as she glanced over at Xander, who currently had his head hung down into his hands. "I'm doing that thing you were telling me about again, aren't I?" she asked him.

He slowly lifted his head from his hands. "Yeah! Yeah. It's okay, hon." He looked over at the uninitiated. "Get used to it. We're still trying to."

Xavier chuckled. "Well, Anya, you certainly are a breath of fresh air." Anya beamed at him. "I suppose I can start the introductions on our end. You already know who I am, but now I'd like to tell you what I am. I am a mutant. I was born with a genetic enhancement that gifted me with certain powers when I reached puberty. I am a telepath. I can reach into any mind and see everything that is there. I could control it if I so wished. I could control the entire world if I wanted, for I am currently the most powerful telepath in the world. I could use my gifts for great evil, but I do not. In fact, I help to fight against mutants who would use their powers for their own gain, as well as against humans who wish to wipe us out of the gene pool. I created this school to help other mutants learn to control their powers and teach them the right reasons to use them. This place is also a safe haven for mutants who have no where else to go, having been shunned by the rest of society. These," he gestured toward the young people who lived there, "are my X-Men."

Scott spoke up first. "Again, my name is Scott Summers, codename Cyclops. I can fire concussive blasts from my eyes, but a childhood accident damaged the part of my brain that would normally control my power. I have to wear ruby quartz glasses at all times to keep the power in check. Otherwise, I could punch a hole through a mountain. I was a member of the original team of X-Men, and currently co-team leader with Ororo."

The redhead went next. "I'm Jean Grey-Summers. I'm a telepath, like the professor, though not nearly as powerful. I'm also a telekinetic. I can move just about anything with my mind."

Next in line was Ororo. "I posses the ability to control the weather. My codename is Storm."

"Robert Drake. But call me Bobby. My codename is Iceman, for obvious reasons." Then, before their eyes, his entire body shifted to one of glacial ice. He lifted his hand, and an icy rose formed in his palm. He leaned across the coffee table and gave it to Dawn.

"Wow," she breathed. "That is so cool. Literally," she giggled.

Rogue rolled her eyes. "Show off," she muttered, elbowing Bobby in his icy ribs. He shifted back to his normal form and very maturely stuck his tongue out at her.

Rogue elbowed him once more before beginning. "Mah name is Rogue. Ah have the ability to absorb a person's energy, memories, personality, and if it's another mutant, powers, all through skin to skin contact. Ah haven't been able to learn to control it yet, so Ah have to keep covered pretty much all the time. The effects of the transfer are usually temporary, unless Ah hang on too long, then they can become permanent. Ah'm also super-strong, pretty much invulnerable, and Ah can fly. Those are all powers Ah permanently…acquired. When Ah touch someone, it usually knocks 'em unconscious, and if the contact goes on too long, Ah could kill 'em," she finished quietly. The dark-haired man sitting next to her reached over to take one of her gloved hands in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Then he addressed the group.

"De name is Gambit," he began with a thick Cajun accent. "Friends call me Remy LeBeau. I have de power to change an inanimate object's potential energy to kinetic energy. Dat would be Scottie's definition. I'd just say I blow t'ings up. I'm also a master thief, former--" He was cut off by the sudden snapping of Spike's fingers.

"LeBeau! I knew I recognized that name. New Orleans Thieves Guild, yeah? Me and Dru ran into some of you blokes when we were down there in the '50's. Happened to have ourselves a couple of Assassins for dinner and you lot came and asked us if we wanted to work for you. You one of Jean-Luc's?" Spike asked.

For his part, Remy was only slightly taken aback at the sudden recognition. "Oui. Adopted son."

Spike nodded in recognition. "So I guess that makes you their leader then?"  
  
Remy shrugged. "Not really. More like absentee monarch. De guilds be Unified now. I left de leadin' to de former Assassin's leader."

"Oh yeah? Unified? Well finally. Always knew if you lot just got your act together you could be a hundred times more powerful if you quit your squabbling. And besides, the guilds always did treat us vamps with their due respect. Not something we forget," Spike said as he reached across the coffee table. Remy met him halfway and they clasped wrists.

"Likewise, mon ami."

The two men sat back with a mutual understanding. Don't fuck with me, I don't with you.

Spike was met with a look from Buffy that said 'What was that all about?' The look he gave replied 'What?' A similar wordless conversation was occurring between Remy and Rogue.

"Well I guess that just leaves me," said Kitty. "My codename is Shadowcat. I can separate all the molecules in my body, allowing me to sort of 'phase' through solid objects. It pretty much means that I'll never have to use a doorknob for the rest of my life. Also, when I'm phasing, I'm lighter than air, so I can actually walk on the atoms of the air. Oh, and if I phase through anything electrical, my power totally shorts it out."

Professor Xavier addressed the entire group. "Well, now that we all know each other, I was hoping we could get down to business. Have you been able to find out anything more about what we're facing?"

"Hey Chuck, sorry if I'm late," came a gruff voice from around the corner. The man who came into view was short, but extremely muscular, and he had some extremely weird hair, all pointed up on the sides.

"Logan, so good of you to show up," Xavier replied dryly. "I would like you to meet--" Before he could finish his sentence the man called Logan had leapt over the coffee table and grabbed Spike by the lapels of his duster, hauling him to his feet and throwing him against the nearest wall. Suddenly three metallic claws shot out of his left hand, puncturing Spike's right shoulder and pinning him to the wall. Spike vamped out, roaring in pain.

Everyone recovered from their initial shock and sprang into action. Shout's of 'What the hell is going on?' and 'Logan! Wolverine!!' and 'Get off him!' all melded together until Buffy grabbed Wolverine's shoulders and ripped him away from Spike, his claws tearing out of Spike's flesh with a sickening sound as Buffy threw him across the room.

"Would someone like to explain to me what the hell just happened?" Buffy yelled, trying to get a look at Spike's injured shoulder.

Wolverine climbed to his feet. "Would someone like to explain to me why the hell there's a vampire in this house?" he growled. "How the fuck did he get in here?"

"He is here because he was invited. If you had been here when I told the rest of the team about who was coming to help us with our current problem then you would have known. And you should have known better than to simply attack a man who is sitting on our couch!" Xavier scolded harshly.

Wolverine stalked up to Spike until they were nose to nose. Well, more like chin to forehead. Spike wasn't that tall, but he had a good eight inches on this guy. "I still don't like it. He's a demon. Therefore dangerous."

The only thing betraying Spike's rage was the twitching of the muscle in his jaw as he clenched his teeth and the slight flaring of his nostrils as he breathed heavily. "You know," he said lightly, "ever since Rupes told me about you lot I've had myself a bit of a theory that I've been dying to test."

Wolverine narrowed his eyes slightly, but did not respond. The only sound heard was the rising of a demonic growl coming from Spike's chest. Buffy's eyes widened as she recognized his intent, but in the space of time it took for her to open her mouth and draw breath to speak Spike had pounced, punching Wolverine in the face with such force it sent him crashing against the wall across the room.

"Mutants, yeah?" Spike said as he jumped on top of the dazed Wolverine. He pummeled him in earnest, the pure fury he felt at being attacked still strong. "Guess that means not quite human, which means I get to kick the living shit out of you!" he roared.

This time it was Spike that Buffy ripped away from Wolverine. With practiced ease she twisted his arm behind his back, kicking his legs out from under him and throwing him to the floor, straddling his back and effectively pinning him to the ground. She looked up at her former Watcher.

"Looks like things just got a little more interesting, huh, Giles?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: SOOOOOO sorry it took so long for me to update. Real life got in the way, and I had a hellacious case of writer's block. This chapter truly spectacularly kicked my ass. But I felt it was necessary to formerly introduce everybody just in case any "uninitiated" were reading this fic. Hopefully, now that all that tedium is out of the way, I will be able to update more often. So tell me, what do you think about the new development that Spike can hurt mutants? Just thought it could make things a little more interesting. As always, thank you to all who do review. I realize I'm playing to a pretty specific audience, but this is at heart a Buffy story. So if like it, tell your friends to give it a try! And there will always be plenty of Spuffiness and Rogambit, so that's just a bonus! 

Yapatchalata!  
Coquine


	6. Dead Inside

"OW! Christ, Slayer, do you think maybe you could pin the arm that doesn't have the puncture wounds?" Spike yelled.

Buffy loosened her grip slightly. "Do you think if I let you up that you wouldn't just get up and try to kill him again?" Spike's only response was to grit his teeth. "That's what I thought. Now just calm down." She looked back up at Giles. "Okay…so, what now?"

Giles sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I honestly don't know. Obviously I never would have considered bringing Spike into this if I thought that he could harm anyone." He turned to the professor. "Please believe I had no idea this might happen, Charles. I fear I may now have put you all at risk."

Professor Xavier nodded slowly. "Of course. However, the question remains of what to do now?"

"Well, clearly he cannot be allowed--"

"Hey! Would you ponces stop bloody talking about me like I'm not right here!" Spike interrupted him.

Giles thoroughly ignored him. "As I was saying, he can't be allowed to remain here. It's too dangerous."  
  
"Giles, I thought you said we'd need him for this," Buffy protested. "You said yourself these Kynshaar thingies are strong, and you know Spike is the strongest fighter we have. Well, besides me."

"Whoa there, Buff. Since when are you on the Spike ship?" Xander asked.

"Since I found out I'm gonna be fighting things that people with real super powers couldn't beat! Listen, I know this looks bad, but Spike was provoked. That Logan guy over there nailed him to the wall! Literally! Don't tell me you wouldn't be a little angry if that happened to you, Xander."

When he didn't reply, Anya decided to speak for him. "Oh he would have been very angry. He probably would have tried to fight as well, but most likely he would have been in too much pain to move."

Giles cleared his throat. "No one is saying that the attack was unprovoked, Buffy. However the fact remains that Spike can harm these people. Are you really willing to take that risk?"

Buffy considered her next words very carefully. The direction this conversation was heading could very possibly lead to some disturbing revelations. She had to figure out how to ease their fears without bringing all the facts into it.

"Just because he can hurt these people…doesn't mean he will." She felt Spike stiffen beneath her. He turned his head back as far as he could and stared at her. She met his eyes for a moment, then looked back up at her former Watcher.

"Buffy," he began cautiously. "What are you saying?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm saying…I trust him. Not to hurt them. Because he has the choice not to."

Various looks of shock, outrage, and confusion crossed the Scoobies' faces. Willow looked over at Tara, not expecting the calm she saw. Tara simply watched the exchange with a thoughtful gaze. The X-Men remained silent, sensing that the revelation was more important, and more personal than it looked.

Giles took a moment to digest this information before continuing. "Buffy, you know I'm loathe to question your judgment, but surely you understand why I have to ask." He looked directly into her eyes. "Why?"

This time Spike felt Buffy stiffen above him. Her entire body was tense, and he could hear her heartbeat accelerate. When she drew in a shaky breath, slightly squeezing her hand around his wrist, his eyes flew wide with realization. _Holy shit_, he thought. _She's gonna tell them._

"Because," she straightened her shoulders, meeting her Watcher's gaze. "He's chosen not to hurt _me_."

Giles' only response was the slight furrowing of his brow. He broke the stunned silence. "What are you saying?"

"Spike can hurt me," she said quietly. "Ever since I came back, his chip hasn't worked on me. I don't know why."

Just as Tara was about to speak up, Xander exploded. "What?! What do you mean his chip doesn't work on you? Has he hurt you? Are you okay? How did this happen? When? Why didn't you tell us, Buffy?"

"Xander, you're missing the point--"  
  
"Well, maybe I am! But I think we deserve some answers here, Buff. This is quite the load you've just dropped on us."  
  
"Fine," she said, exasperated. "I meant exactly what I said. His chip doesn't work on me. It still works on everyone else though. No, he hasn't hurt me, that was my point. Yes, I'm fine. I don't know how it happened. The chip hasn't worked on me since I came back from the dead, but we discovered the fact a few months ago when we got into an argument, I hit him, he hit me back without really thinking about it, and boom, no pain. And I didn't tell you because I really didn't want to deal with exactly this kind of situation. Now, are those answers enough to ease the load?"

When no one answered, Buffy looked down at the vampire she still had pinned to the ground. "Spike?" she addressed him directly for the first time during this conversation.

"Um, yeah?" he replied, slightly nervous now.

"You of course know that if you hurt any of these people, whom we are trying to help, I will stake you, correct?"

"Yeah."

"And you realize that I am putting a lot of faith in you right now, and if you break it, I will never trust you ever, ever again, right?"

"Right."

"Good." She addressed the rest of the group. "Then it's settled." With that, she released Spike's arm, swinging one leg off of him so she could kneel next to him and help him sit up. She then stood and levelly met Giles' gaze. "I think I should probably do a quick patrol. See if I might run into one of these demon guys."

Still slightly dumbfounded, Giles simply nodded.

"Great." Then she turned, and walked calmly out the door.

As it clicked shut, all eyes immediately trained on Spike, who was slowly picking himself up off the floor. His eyes flicked between the Scoobie members, met with various looks ranging from fear, anger, confusion, and an odd look of concern from Tara.

"Uh…" Spike trailed off. He met Giles' eyes. "Right then." He began easing himself towards the door. "I'll just be…yeah." And with that, he turned and rushed out the door after Buffy, before anyone could react further.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spike caught up with Buffy about a hundred yards away from the mansion. He jogged up behind her before falling into step beside her.

"What are you doing out here?" she sighed, not even bothering to look at him.

"Well, considering you ducked out after your little announcement, I thought I'd better make myself scarce if I didn't want a stake through the heart, courtesy of the whelp or your watcher," he snarked.

Spike waited for a reply, sighing when none came. He tried for some shop talk. "So, you thinking we might see one of these things tonight, before the new moon is over?" Still no response. He tried another tactic that usually got her talking: piss her off. "You realize of course that you have no idea where this place is that these X-blokes met up with these things, right? It could be ten bloody miles from here, and I don't really fancy walkin' so far that we can't get back before sunrise, yeah?"

Still nothing. Damn. She really must be upset to not jump at the tiniest excuse to get into an argument with him. She merely continued walking aimlessly, barely looking up from her feet to avoid the trees they were heading toward. Spike gave up on having any type of conversation; it was clear she wasn't going to talk about what had just occurred, which, in his opinion, had been a pretty damn big deal.

He didn't know how long they'd been walking, at least twenty minutes, before Buffy's voice startled him out of his thoughts. "God, it's fucking freezing out here!" she exclaimed without preamble. She began rubbing her upper arms vigorously.

Spike considered his response carefully, not wanting her to clam up once again. "Well, pet, it is the middle of sodding winter. Tends to get a tad chilly any place that isn't southern California." Okay, so maybe not that carefully.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

"I'm just sayin', New York in winter is of a slightly different climate than Sunnyhell, and I hope you packed accordingly," he tried for reason.

"Well, it's not your job to worry about if I dress for the weather, now is it?"

Spike ducked his head at the harsh reminder. "Of course I'm gonna worry about my girl," he mumbled softly, not sure if he wanted her to hear him or not."

Buffy's sudden halt in her steps told him that she had indeed heard him. As he slowly turned to face her, he decided that he hadn't really wanted her to hear him.

He was just about to make some sort of hopefully dismissing comment, when he turned fully and saw her stricken face, chin quivering and tears filling her eyes, and his voice died in his throat. His brow furrowed in confusion. "Buffy, what's--"

"I," she began in a shaky voice, "am not," she took a step toward him, "your GIRL!" she aimed a right hook at his jaw with her final word, sending him flying onto the pine-needle covered ground. The stress of the confrontation at the mansion, the pressure of trying to raise her teenage sister when she was barely out of her teens herself, trying to hold down a shitty minimum wage job, the ever-present reality of being the Slayer, and trying to cope with being brought back to this hellish life after an eternity in heaven finally culminated within Buffy, and her words and actions no longer felt like they were in her control, taking it out on the one thing, the one person, who made any of it better at all.

She marched up to Spike's sprawled form, straddling his waist and punching him once more before grabbing the lapels of his duster and hauling him up to crash her mouth to his. She leaned over him, pushing him back down onto his back as she parted his lips with hers, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and forcing him to respond, which he of course did. Always so eager to give her what she would take from him, even if she only took one part of what he could give.

Buffy was kissing him wildly, almost desperately, as she scooted the lower half of her body down until she was straddling his hips, and ground herself down on his growing erection, rubbing until he was fully hard. Spike moaned and tried to wrap his arms around Buffy's body, but she pulled back and grabbed his wrists, pinning them under each of her knees. Spike watched with a mixture of lust, confusion, and concern as Buffy fumbled with his belt buckle, then with a frustrated cry ripped open his fly, popping off the top button. She roughly grasped his cock, pumping it hard. Spike gasped and threw his head back, his arms straining against the vice grip of her knees.

When the pressure against one of his wrists was released, he looked back toward Buffy, watching as she held down his recently freed wrist with one hand while unzipping her jeans with the other. She managed to push them down over her hips and free one leg before straddling him again, re-pinning his wrist. She pulled her thong off to one side, positioning his cock at her entrance.  


The contact with her warm flesh seemed to bring Spike out of his shocked daze. "Luv, wait, you're not--ah!" He cut off as she shoved herself down onto his shaft, the rough joining making them both cry out in pained pleasure.

She gave neither him nor herself time to adjust before raising her hips and slamming them down to his once again, both wincing. She raised up again. "You don't…" Thrust down, "have a soul!" Raised up. "You can't feel…" Down, "anything real!"

By now, the tears that had once been hovering on Buffy's lashes spilled over, trailing down her cheeks as she continued the harsh thrusting. Spike finally wrenched his left hand free, moving it between her legs and rubbing his thumb gingerly against her clit, trying to bring her some pleasure, make her wet enough so it wouldn't be so rough. Buffy shuddered slightly at the contact, whimpering softly. But then she came back to herself, grabbing his wrist with her right hand and moving it away from her, punching him in the face with her left hand before grabbing his other wrist, pinning his hands to the ground on either side of his head.

She thrust hard once, twice, three more times before raising up and holding herself on the tip of his cock. She leaned down over Spike's face, her tears splashing down onto his cheeks. "You are dead inside," she ground out, before slamming her hips down one last time, then collapsed sobbing against his chest. Her voice was almost a whimper, muffled against his t-shirt. "I could never…be your girl."

Spike thought his unbeating heart might just break. He took advantage of her loosened grip, and wrapped his arms tightly around her quaking body. He pressed his lips to the top of her head. "Oh, my sweet girl," he whispered against her hair. "You're not dead inside."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back at the Xavier mansion, those who were still awake milled about with marked tension. Most of the X-Men had retired to bed, as well as most of the Scoobies after being shown to their rooms. Now, only Xander, Giles, Storm, and Iceman remained downstairs.

Xander walked up to Giles, who sat in one of the overstuffed chairs reading one of his demon texts. "Any luck with some more info on these guys?"

Giles sighed and closed his book, leaning his head against the back of the chair. "No, I'm afraid not. These Kynshaar are simply so rare that virtually nothing save for basic facts is known of them."

Xander nodded, but made no move to leave.

Giles looked back up at him. "Was there something else? Is everything all right?"

Xander shuffled his feet a little, before taking a deep breath and looking back at Giles. "They've been gone for over an hour, Giles. Are you trying to say that you're not the slightest bit worried?"

"No, of course I'm concerned, but--"  
  
"But nothing! Giles, we're back to 'Hey, Spike might kill Buffy tonight!' I mean, I know that the whole point of her telling us about it was that she trusted him or whatever, but…I don't know, I mean, what if her telling us pissed him off and now she's dead and he's run off or something! What if--?"

"Xander!" Giles cut off the boy's ranting. "Believe me, I understand your concerns perfectly, and have been thinking very much the same things as you. But I have to trust Buffy on her judgment. Really, what other choice do we have? Besides, I hardly think it's very good of us to just assume that Spike could easily…take Buffy. She is the Slayer, Xander."

Xander sighed wearily. "I know. I know. It's just…god, how could she not tell us?"

"I don't know. I wish she had. But for now, all we can do is have faith. And besides, when I checked with Charles half an hour ago, he said that he could still sense both of them on the grounds." Giles smiled slightly as he basically admitted to checking up on Buffy and Spike.

Xander returned his smirk. "Okay. Well, I know I'm still not gonna be able to sleep anytime soon. I think I'm gonna head back over to that nifty big screen TV they showed us in the den."

"Alright then. I'm sure I'll still be here, what with the fruitless efforts and all." Xander nodded once, then made his way back to said big screen.

When he got back to the den, he found that his seat on the couch had been occupied by…crap, what was his name? So many new people…oh yeah, Bobby.

"Hey," Xander greeted as he plopped down on the other end of the couch. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

Iceman looked over at Xander. "Oh please. I'm this team's equivalent of the college boy. I'm never in bed before sunup."

Xander grinned at that. "Yeah, one gets used to all-nighters when you go after vampires."

"Yeah I guess you would. So…any infomercial you're particularly fond of? I'm sure we could find it on one of these channels."

Xander chuckled. "Nah, nothing in particular. Although, any exercise-type with hot chicks will do nicely."

Now it was Bobby's turn to laugh. "That's what I'm talkin' about," he laughed, reaching for the remote control.

Back in the sitting room, Giles had dozed off, an especially thick volume laid open on his lap. Storm smiled slightly as she walked up to him, shaking his shoulder softly. Giles awoke with a start, looking around him for the source of his confusion.

His eyes settled on the figure beside him. "Oh, Ororo, I'm sorry. I must've nodded off."

"It is quite alright. Perhaps you want to head up to your room?"

"No, no. I really should try to find something more about our adversary. Plus, I'd like to wait until Buffy and Spike return," he admitted.

Ororo smiled softly. "I can assure you, that if they left on foot, they are still on the grounds. The professor's property extends for almost ten square miles. I would offer to check our surveillance, but we deactivated it after they left. Our security is quite sensitive."

"Yes, so Charles explained. I just can't help but worry…"  
  
"Of course. Perhaps some tea will take your mind off things?" She held out her hand to him.

Giles took it as she helped him to stand. "Yes, thank you. I think it might."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spike didn't know how long they had lain there on the frozen forest floor, but Buffy's tortured sobs seemed to have no end. She did calm down eventually, but they continued to lay there, Spike rubbing her back in firm strokes, murmuring nonsensical comforts against her hair. He could feel her start to calm down, her breaths coming strong and deep against his throat, sending warm jets of air over his skin. However, when her body began shaking again, only this time with cold, Spike finally spoke up.

"Buffy, luv. Do you want to get back inside?"

He felt her nod against his chest, then slowly sat up, sniffling. Spike pushed himself up on his hands, then wrapped his arms around her waist and eased her off his lap, his now softened, though not spent, cock slipping out of her body. He quickly tucked himself back inside his jeans and zipped up, then turned his attentions to Buffy's clothing. He righted her thong, careful to be gentle after their rough coupling. He knelt behind her and grasped her shoulders, leaning her back against his chest so he could reach down to her jeans, holding them so she could guide her bare leg back into them. He fastened her fly, then helped her up to her feet.

She was looking at him in such a way…almost begging him to take care of her, but afraid of letting him? She shivered again, wrapping her arms around herself. Spike slipped out of his duster, draping it over her shoulders and closing it in front of her. Her hands reached out to hold it closed.

"C'mon, luv. Let's get you warmed up." Spike placed his hand in the small of her back, guiding her back toward the mansion.

They walked most of the way in silence, save for the occasional sniff from Buffy. Suddenly she spoke up. "Aren't you cold?" she asked, as though the thought had just occurred to her.

Spike glanced over at her, finding her looking at him with a worried crease between her brows. He smirked slightly. "Nah. Cold never much bothered me, and having no actual body temperature helps."

"Oh," she nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. As they approached the mansion, Buffy's steps became noticeably more reluctant. Spike followed her gaze to the front of the building, where two windows still blazed with light.

"I'm sure there's a back way or something, if you want," Spike said softly.

"Yeah. Don't really feel like…dealing right now. Okay?" she looked back at him as though for approval.

"Course. Let's just see what we can find." With that, he once again pressed his palm to her back, guiding her around the building.

As it turned out, there were several other doors, but they chose the one which seemed farthest away from any other lights. Finding it unlocked, they crept inside, trying to ascertain where in the mansion they were. They followed a short hallway around the corner, then inside a swinging door they discovered led to the kitchen.  
  
Extending his senses until he was sure they were alone, Spike slid his hand along the wall until he found the light switch, flipping it on. They both blinked and squinted, trying to adjust their eyes to the light. When they did, Spike spotted an island with several stools around it, which he led Buffy to, gesturing for her to sit. Once she did, Spike located a roll of paper towels next to the sink, tearing one off and wetting it with warm water, then grabbed the whole roll and went back over to Buffy, who was slipping out of his duster and laying it across her lap.

Spike grasped her chin in his right hand, tilting it up slightly and wiping her tearstained face with the damp paper towel. Once he was done with that, he tore of another and handed it to her. "Blow," he said as he walked toward the huge refrigerator.

Buffy snorted softly. "Usually there's more innuendo to that order," she muttered, smirking. She lifted the paper towel to her nose and did as she was told.

Spike leered good naturedly over his shoulder. "Maybe next time."

He walked back to her with an ice tray in his hands. He set it down on the counter, then tore off a long strand of paper towels, folding them until they were square. He proceeded to shake loose several ice cubes, setting them in the center of the paper towels before twisting the corners together, creating a makeshift icepack. He lifted it to the back of her neck, pressing it there. Buffy made a small sound of satisfaction. She always liked ice on the back of her neck. He always knew that.

Buffy's eyes suddenly trained on the thin trails of blood seeping down Spike's right bicep. His t-shirt had three small tears in it from where that freaky short guy had stabbed him. "Shit, Spike, your shoulder!" Buffy exclaimed.

Spike looked down at said shoulder, having until then forgotten about his injury. "S'nothing. Already starting to heal."

"Well, it's still bleeding, so it can't be that healed. Hold still," she commanded as she reached up and grasped his sleeve in both hands, then tore it up to the collar, letting the material fall open and reveal the three puncture wounds. Or actually, six. They went all the way through to his back. The wounds were in fact beginning to heal, but were still seeping blood, precious fluid for the vampire that he couldn't really afford to lose.

Buffy reached forward and pulled the stool next to hers closer. "Sit," she told Spike, which he did. Buffy picked up the damp paper towel Spike had used to wipe her face, in turn wiping the blood off of his arm and shoulder. Once that was done, she tore of more paper towels, folding them until they were about a half an inch thick. She repeated this once more, until she held two makeshift bandages. She pressed one to each set of wounds, applying steady pressure in hopes it would staunch the blood flow.

They sat like this for some minutes, Spike's left hand holding the ice pack to Buffy's neck, both of her hands holding the bandages to his shoulder. Spike's soft voice broke this silence. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know," Buffy answered just as softly. "Sometimes, it just gets…I don't know."

"Buffy…you know you can talk to me."

She lifted her eyes to his, but did not respond. She didn't know how. So she simply held his gaze, slowly losing herself in the crystal blue depths of his eyes. He seemed to be searching her eyes, too. For what? Answers? She wondered if he could find any when she didn't know them herself.

This is the sight that greeted Giles and Ororo as they walked through the kitchen door. Buffy and Spike jumped slightly, startled, but they did not move from their positions, icepack and bandages still held in place. Instead, an extremely charged silence filled the room as Giles especially scrutinized them. He took in both of their roughened appearances, and Spike had some bruising on his face.

"You're back," he said unnecessarily. "Did you, ah, run into some trouble?" he asked, gesturing to their general area.

Spike merely looked back to Buffy, seemingly concentrating on her icepack. Buffy did the same with his shoulder. She lifted each bandage, checking to see if the wounds bled once the pressure was lifted. She seemed to be satisfied with their healing, and set the bloodied paper towels on the counter. She slid off the stool, laying Spike's duster across the counter as well. She then lifted one hand to the icepack on her neck, sliding her fingers over Spike's as she took it from his hand, setting it on the counter next to the bandages.

Finally she looked back up to her former Watcher. "No. No trouble. I mean, nothing we couldn't handle."

Giles frowned as he took in all that he had just seen. It wasn't in itself so unusual to see them tending to wounds, even on each other, but there was just…something. He was unable to pinpoint it.

Buffy gathered the discarded paper towels together, taking them over to a trash can she had spotted. "I am, uh, pretty tired though. I think I need some sleep."

"Yeah," Spike drawled, sliding off the stool as well, picking up his duster and folding it over his uninjured arm. "Did we get some rooms or something? Or do we get to camp out on the living room floor?" he snarked.

"Oh, y-yes. Everyone went to bed some time ago."

"Great," Buffy said. She looked up expectantly.

"I will show you to your rooms," said Ororo.

Buffy smiled slightly. "Thanks." She moved out the door, followed by Spike.

Ororo addressed Giles. "Rupert. I will return shortly."

Giles merely nodded once. He went to sit on one of the other stools as she walked out the door. He stared intently at the two chairs recently vacated by Spike and Buffy, picturing them sitting there as they were when he and Ororo walked in. He still couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something…there.

*************************************************************

  
Author's Note: OMG I am SO sorry it has taken me so freakin' long to get this chapter up. Half of it has just been sitting on a disk for like a month, and I needed to finish it. But that gets kinda hard when you're taking summer classes, working forty hours a week, and trying to move into a new apartment. Damn you, real life! Damn you! Anyways, I'm not gonna make any promises, but I hope I'll be able to get more chapters up more often. And as always, thank you to all my readers and double thank you to all my reviewers. You guys keep me goin'! *MUAH*


	7. Sweet Slumber

After she and Spike had been shown to their rooms, Buffy's exhaustion caught up with her. She merely kicked off her shoes, then collapsed into bed. She was just beginning to doze off when a soft knock was heard at her door.

"Mmmmf," she whined, then sighed and got up to open the door, revealing Tara on the other side.

Buffy's brows wrinkled in confusion. "Tara? What's up? Is everything okay?"

Tara nodded. "Oh yeah, everything's fine. I just, um, well I've been trying to talk to you about…that thing you asked me to check up on..?"

Flash of recognition. "Oh! Oh, yeah, come on in, Tara." Tara walked in and Buffy closed the door behind them. They walked over to the bed and sat on the foot, facing each other.

"Well I guess I'll just get right to it. I've double-checked everything." Tara smiled warmly, "There's nothing wrong with you."

Buffy's face remained expressionless. "Then why can Spike hurt me?"

"Well, I said that there was nothing wrong with you, but…you are different. Shifting you out of…f-from where you were…funneling your essence back into your body, it altered you on a basic molecular level. Probably just enough to confuse the sensors or whatever in Spike's chip. But it's all just surfacey physical stuff," she quickly reassured. "It wouldn't have any more effect than…a bad sunburn."

Buffy looked down as it sunk into her brain. No…it can't be that… "I didn't come back wrong?" she asked softly.

"No you're the same Buffy. With a deep tropical cellular tan," she finished with a smile, hoping for some levity.

Buffy looked back up at Tara, tears shimmering in her eyes. "You must have missed something. Will you check again?" she asked tremulously.

Tara frowns in concern. "Buffy, I-I promise, there's nothing wrong with you."  


"Well, there has to be!" she whispered desperately. "This just can't be me, it isn't me." She began to weep softly, it's just too, too much. "Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?"

"You mean hit you."

Buffy met Tara's eyes then, with a look of despair that Tara had never before seen in her. "But more importantly…why do I do those things to Spike?" her voice cracking on his name.

Tara's brows knit in confusion. "Oh…Oh! Hmm…really…" as she realized what she meant.

"He's everything that I'm supposed to hate…everything that…I'm supposed to be against." Buffy could no longer hold in her tears, and they began flowing freely down her cheeks. "But the only time that I ever feel anything is when…when I'm with him!" She looked back up to Tara almost desperately. "Don't tell anyone, please."

"I won't," she assured her.

"Oh, they way they would look at me…I just c-couldn't…" she choked back a sob.

"I won't tell anyone. I wouldn't do that."

"Why can't I stop?" she whispered. "Why do I keep letting him in?"

"Do you love him?" Tara asked tenderly.

Buffy could only stare back at her.

"I-it's okay if you do. He's done a lot of good, and…and he does love you. A-and Buffy, it's okay if--"

"It's not!" Buffy cut her off. "It's wrong. I'm wrong," she says forcefully. Then her shoulders begin to slump forward in defeat. "Tell me that I'm wrong, please…" she leans forward into Tara's lap, sobs overtaking her. "Please don't forgive me, please…please don't…"

Tara didn't know what to say, didn't know if there was anything she could say to help her friend. She'd never seen someone so distraught, and she didn't need to see her aura to know that Buffy was at the end of her rope. So she simply let her cry, stroking her hair in an effort to bring some kind of comfort. After several minutes, the tortured crying had almost stopped. Almost.

Buffy slowly sat up, wiping at her face. She refused to meet Tara's eyes. If she saw the pity she knew would be there, she didn't think she'd ever stop crying. "I, um…I'm sorry about that," she said, voice rough with emotion.

"Buffy…" Tara tried to reassure her.

"No…really. I'm okay. I think…I think I just need to take a hot bath," she said dully as she stood up from the bed.

Tara followed her. "Well, okay. If you're sure. I mean, I could stay here if you needed to talk. I really don't mind…"

"Thanks. But it's really not necessary. You should get some rest, too. I'm sure we have some long researchy days ahead of us," she said lightly, though her back remained turned, as she was rummaging through her suitcase and removing her toiletries.

Tara frowned, not convinced for one moment that Buffy was okay, but not knowing what else to offer besides her presence, which Buffy made clear was not wanted. So she simply walked out the door, shutting it softly behind her.

As soon as Buffy heard the latch click into place, she deflated, sighing heavily and sinking down onto the floor next to her bag. She wearily ran a hand over her face. She was exhausted. Too much emotional stress for one day. She wasn't sure if she had the energy for that bath. She shifted uncomfortably in her clothes, dirty and damp with sweat and…other things. Nope. She definitely had the energy. She got up and removed her clothes, piling them on the floor at least three feet away from her clean clothes.

The bathroom was wonderful. Everything was spotless porcelain and the tub had Jacuzzi jets in it. She couldn't wait to try those out. However, in her current state, Buffy thought she might fall asleep in said tub and drown, so she opted for the shower instead. She turned the water on and waited until it was steaming before she stepped in. Oh yeah. She could get used to this. Even after thoroughly scrubbing her body and hair clean, she stood under the hot spray for a good ten minutes, letting the water relieve the tension from her body.

By the time she got out, she felt like a new woman. She even felt like some of the weight had been lifted off her shoulders by telling Tara about her and Spike. She wiped the condensation off the mirror and stared back at her reflection. She was still too thin, and she had dark circles under her eyes. But still, she felt…almost good. She smiled slightly, running her hands through her hair, fingers combing back the wet strands, and she caught a glimpse of the faint rings around her wrists. She ran a finger lightly over the one of her left wrist. Just a pink line, hardly visible, and surely gone by tomorrow morning. But the memory of how she got them…Buffy closed her eyes as an involuntary shudder went through her. She said she would never trust him, yet made no move when Spike slipped the cuffs around her wrists. And, oh, the things he did to her. And then, when she had bound his hands, holding them above his head while she slowly rode him, teasing, until he could take no more and snapped the metal chain that constrained him, roughly flipping her over and--

"Arg!" Buffy shook her head sharply, as though that would erase the memories. She looked back at her reflection, and rolled her eyes. "I'm like a freakin' heroine addict or something…" she muttered, irritated at herself, yanking one of the fluffy white bath towels off the rack on the wall and rubbing her skin dry. She walked out the door roughly toweling her hair dry, and was greeted with the sight of Spike sitting on the edge of her bed, elbows resting on his knees. Of course.

She sighed heavily, tossing the towel onto the bathroom floor behind her, uncaring of her nudity. She turned to face him, hand on her hips.

"What are you doing here, Spike?"

"Came to see if you were all right," he replied softly.

Buffy rolled her eyes, heading towards her suitcase and retrieving her hairbrush, and began detangling her locks. "I'm fine."

Spike sighed, standing up. "No. You're not."

"God! Why are you being like this?" She threw her brush into her bag. "Since when are you so pushy!"

"I'm not being pushy! Time was not too long ago you would've answered the question without shutting me out!"

"I'm not shutting you out. You were never in--"

"Oh, that's bollocks and you bloody well know it!" Spike suddenly exploded. "We used to talk. We used to be some kind of friends, god forbid."

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. Spike stalked up to her, staring her down until she looked back up at him. "We stopped talkin'…the minute we started shaggin'," he said, more calmly now. "If you want the truth, it started before that. Started with that kiss behind the shop, after the song and dance numbers."

Buffy closed her eyes, momentarily lost in the memory and his close proximity. When she opened them, Spike was looking at her with a thoughtful gaze. He raised his right hand and laid it against her face, fingers gently stroking her temple.

"You shut me out of here…" he lifted his left hand to her chest, laying his palm over her heart, "…the minute you let me in here," he finished softly.

Buffy could not help the shudder that went through her body at his touch, and also his words. She took a deep breath in an effort to steady her voice.

"What makes you think I let you in at all?" Her words were harsh, but she made no move to step away from his hands.

Spike closed his eyes as he felt the stab of pain go through him. That shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. But he still couldn't answer her question with any convincing, so he posed one of his own. "Are you gonna look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't, luv?"

Buffy held his gaze so steadily he felt a jolt of fear go through him. She was actually going to say it, say that she never let him in, not ever.

But she never said a word. Instead, she lifted herself on her toes and leaned forward, gently pressing her lips to Spike's, maintaining their eye contact. Spike's panic left him so suddenly that he couldn't help the sigh of relief when he felt her warm lips on his. He tentatively kissed her back, first the top, then the pouting lower lip. The way she kept her eyes locked to his both unnerved and thrilled him. Only when he swept his tongue across the seam of her lips did her lids drift closed, even as her mouth opened. Her tongue came out to dance with his, and Spike knew that this was by far the gentlest of kisses they'd ever shared.

He brought both hands up to cup her face, and slowly extricated himself from the kiss. Buffy's brows knit slightly in confusion, and she opened her eyes to gaze into his questioningly.

"Buffy. What. Is. Wrong?" he whispered urgently. When answered only by the clenching of her jaw and the averting of her eyes, Spike sighed deeply, pressing his forehead to hers. "Let me in, luv. Please. Let me do what I can for you, besides just make you forget."

"You don't--" Buffy choked out, before sniffing and clearing her throat. "You don't make me forget, Spike," she whispered as she once again raised glittering eyes to his. "You make me remember."

"What do you mean, pet?"

"You make me remember…what it's like…to feel. To feel anything that's…good. And it makes me so sad," she choked back a sob, "because when it's over everything just becomes hard and cold and bright again," she finished in a rush.

Spike honestly didn't know what to say or do to make things right for his girl. So he simply pressed a kiss to her forehead, and wrapped his arms around her, feeling her hot tears streak down his chest. He slowly began leading them backwards, toward her bed. When he felt his knees hit the edge, he turned and guided her to lay down. He pulled the covers over her, then stood before her as she stared at him with tear-rimmed eyes. Slowly, he pulled his shirt off over his head, then shucked his jeans onto the floor. He went around to the other side of the bed and climbed under the covers, scooting over to her and pulled her into his arms. Buffy sighed, sending a hot stream of air across his chest, making him shiver. They lay that way for such a long time, her head pillowed on his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her, that Spike was sure she had fallen asleep. Just as he was about to doze himself, he heard her begin to speak.

It took him a moment to realize it, but she was telling him about…everything. What she remembered of heaven. How much she missed her mom. How worried she was about supporting herself and Dawn. How worried she was about Willow. Wondering if she would live to see thirty. How happy she was for Xander and Anya, and how guilty she felt for being insanely jealous of them. How he was the only person she'd ever known who could annoy her so thoroughly on minute and make her laugh the next.

Spike lost track of the actual words being spoken after a while, and instead focused all of his other senses on her. He watched the play of emotions across her face. Listened to her giggle when she was remembering something funny. Smelled the salt of her tears when she remembered something she'd rather have forgotten. Felt the heat rise in her skin as she thought of something they'd done together, whether it was fighting or other things. And throughout it all, Spike knew that something between them was changing. Maybe not drastically, but something had been set in motion, and it was something he knew he would fight for fist and fang to keep it going. 

Eventually Buffy's words became softer, more slurred, till they were finally half-dreamt murmurs. Spike idly stroked her hair as she fell deeper into slumber, lulling himself in the process. Neither actually remembered falling asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy awoke feeling safer than she had in a long time. She was warm. She was laying on an incredibly comfortable bed. She was wrapped up in covers and various strong limbs, pressed against an equally strong chest. She peeked through her eyelashes to see the room filled with the soft blue light of pre-dawn. She looked up into Spike's deceptively angelic face. In slumber he held the countenance of the Greek Endymion. She reached up her free hand to stroke his chiseled jaw and cheek, down the side of his neck and over a sculpted shoulder, then around to travel the smooth planes of his back, and over the silken skin of his ass. His muscular thigh was slid between hers, pressing firmly against her sex.

Her eyes once again drifted closed as her hand continued its journey over his body, and she felt rather than saw Spike stirring to wakefulness. His eyes too remained closed, yet his lips moved unerringly to the crook of her neck, pressing sleepy kisses to her hot skin. His hands, too, found their targets, one slipping down her back to cup her ass, pulling her more firmly against him, the other caressing up her stomach to tease across one breast, rubbing the nipple lightly before pinching it firmly.

Buffy began to sigh and moan softly, her own hand reaching between them to grasp his cock, stroking it gently. Spike made a sound that seemed a cross between a groan and a growl, and squeezed her breast once before sending his hand down between the top of his own thigh and Buffy's dark curls, parting her flesh to stroke gentle, lazy circles over her clit.

She cried out softly, then wrapped her arm around Spike's shoulders, sliding her knee up over his hip, even as he shifted down slightly. As soon as the tip of his cock touched her heated entrance, he began to press gently into her, as she pushed onto him. They both sighed as he was fully sheathed inside her. They kissed softly, and began a slow but steady rhythm, gently rocking together and apart, barely moving at all. The feelings coursing through their bodies were so intense, so unadulterated, that little else was required to bring them to shuddering release.

Their positions had barely changed since their waking, save for Spike still being nestled inside of her. He once again settled his head in the crook of her neck, tightening his arms around her as she stroked his back.

He had just about dozed off again when he heard her giggle softly, her chest bouncing against him. "Wha's funny, luv?" he mumbled.

"I was just thinking," he could hear the grin in her voice, "that we really can do that in our sleep."  


Spike couldn't help it, and had to join her in the giggling. He was just too content not to. "So it appears, pet. Go back to sleep."

"Plan on it," she sighed, and then quickly followed it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It felt like they had only gone back to sleep a few moments before, when Spike and Buffy were awoken to the sound of a hesitant yet steady knocking on her door.

As sometimes happens when you're sleeping so well you just know you had to have missed something, Buffy was startled into waking and shot straight up to a sitting position, sending an equally startled Spike sprawling onto his back.

"Who is it?" she called out loudly if groggily, earning her an irritated glare from the vampire next to her, as he sat up on his elbows.

"I-It's Tara," called the voice from the other side of the door.

Buffy's sleep- and sex-addled brain followed roughly this train of thought: _Tara. She knows already. More sleep for Buffy. Yay. _"Come in," she yelled, and promptly flung herself back onto the mattress, curling up against a more than slightly shocked Spike, and burrowing under the covers.

For her part, Tara reacted very well to the sight which greeted her. There was only a temporary loss in motor skills and speech ability, which were both quickly overcome as she remembered that, one: she was standing in the very wide open doorway, and two: she had come up to Buffy's room for a reason. She closed the door and approached the bed, trying not to blush as Spike settled back against the headboard, settling his arm loosely around Buffy's shoulders.

"Um, B-Buffy?" Tara took the muffled "huh" as an acknowledgement of her existence, and continued. "W-Well, it's, um, eleven-thirty. In the morning."

"Mm. Huh?!" Buffy once again shot to a sitting position, clutching the covers to her chest. Her eyes searched the room for the digital alarm clock sitting on the dresser, it's glowing numbers confirming Tara's statement. "Oh, wow. I don't know when I last slept so much!" she exclaimed, unable to keep the joy of a good night's sleep from her voice.

Tara smiled warmly. "I'm glad. I told everyone to let you sleep in, but after eleven they were getting kinda worried about you. I told them I'd check on you."

"Thanks, Tara," Buffy said through her yawn. "We'll be down in a second."

Tara glanced shyly at Spike, who still lay passively on the pillows. "I'll tell them." Then she turned and walked out, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

Buffy dropped the covers and stretched her arms above her head, groaning and arching her back. She turned to look back at Spike, but whatever she was about to say died on her lips as she took in his awed expression.

"What?" she asked, as his eyes locked on hers as though he couldn't believe what he saw in them.

"What??" she repeated, laughing slightly as his expression changed from awe to joy, a slow smile spreading across his features.

"Wh--aiee!" she squealed as he pounced on her, knocking her back to the mattress and covering her neck, shoulders, face, and lips with fevered kisses.

It was…slightly longer than a second before they made it down to the others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: My sincerest apologies to all the readers of this fic. I must admit to having abandoned not only this story, but also my other fic, "The Marching Razorbacks," as well as the half a dozen other fics I have started but not yet published. My life right now is not very fan fiction-friendly. I'm going to school full time, working full time, and my two and a half year relationship with my boyfriend has been of the rocky. I can't give you any ideas of when I will get to the next chapters of any of my stories, but this chapter has sat on my disk three-quarters finished so I decided to go ahead and write the last two pages. In the meantime, I thank all of you who have read and reviewed, and ask for your further patience. And to those of you who were concerned for my state of living, yes, I am still alive. ;-d

Lata,  
Coquine (coquinespike@yahoo.com)


	8. Happy Hour

"Good morning, everyone!" Buffy cheerily greeted the already researching Scoobies. She skipped over to the table where they all sat, picked up a random book from the enormous pile in the middle of the table, and plopped down in an empty chair, kicking her legs up onto the table and opening the book on her lap. "Everyone ready to research?"

"Yes, well, some of us have been researching since the better part of last night and all of this morning," Giles remarked dryly. "Though I must say that the sleep did well for you. You're almost glowing," he smiled, genuinely happy that Buffy appeared much better off than she had last night.

At the 'glowing' comment, Buffy made a very serious attempt to not blush, remembering exactly how, not seven minutes before, Spike had contributed to the flush in her cheeks. "Must've been the trip down here. There's, um, lots of stairs in this place."

"Right," Giles continued. "Well, feel free to start anywhere," he gestured to the pile of books before him. "Despite said hours of research, we've yet to come up with anything of much use."

"Phooey," Buffy pouted. "And here I was hoping you'd have everything figured out by the time I got up this morning." She turned a page and began reading.

A few moments later, however, their researching was again interrupted as Spike strode up to the table. "Morning, all," he said.

"I thought vampires slept all day," remarked Anya.

Spike shrugged. "I got enough sleep last night," he said, pointedly not looking at the flush of Buffy's cheeks which he already knew would be there. "Even if I did have to worry about getting jumped by one of the fuzzy freaks around here," he said loudly, glaring at the door which led to the kitchen.

As if on cue, the one they'd called Wolverine came through the door, walking past their table and striding dangerously close to Spike, their eyes locked together in challenge. As he passed Spike, Wolverine emitted a low growl, which Spike answered with a dangerous snarl of his own. Wolverine continued walking without incident.

For a moment, the group just stared at Spike, the silence broken when Xander commented, "Ohh-kaayyy. Did anybody else just feel like they were watching the Discovery Channel?"

"Spike," Giles sighes, "do try not to cause any more trouble. We brought you along so you could fight these demons, not the people we're trying to help."

"Me cause trouble?!" Spike exclaimed. "I'm not the one who pinned me to a bloody wall, now am I!"

"Yes, well, why don't you keep yourself out of trouble and make yourself useful," Giles suggested, nodding towards the researching Scoobies.

"Yeah, I could do that, except I'm already bored to tears just watching you lot." Spike grabbed one of the empty chairs, maneuvered it in between Buffy and Dawn's chairs, then sat down straddling the back. He sat quietly for almost three whole seconds, then started chipping away the remnants of the black polish on his nails.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, because that looks so much less boring."

Spike shrugged his shoulders, then gave her a wink. Once he chipped the last of the old polish off, he began digging in his duster pockets, searching for and finally finding his nearly empty bottle of black nail polish. He idly began painting the fingers of his right hand, then once those were done, he nudged Dawn and handed her the bottle. She grinned, then glanced over at Giles to see if he would notice her not researching. She took Spike's left hand, and painted each of those nails for him, handing the bottle back to him and resuming her reading. Spike sat in the chair, blowing on his nails till they were dry, then began thumping his fingers on the edge of the table, obviously drumming the beat of some punk song. After about a minute of that, Buffy made an exasperated noise and slammed her hands down on top of Spike's ceasing the incessant noise.

"Thank you!" cried a relieved Willow, Xander, and Giles.

Spike just rolled his eyes and stood up from the table, only to begin pacing around the room, picking up and examining the various pictures and knick-knacks he saw, before setting them down and moving on to the next area. He entered and exited the kitchen door several times, once returning to the table with a bottle of beer he obviously pilfered from their host's refrigerator.

"What?" he asked innocently in reply to Giles' disdainful look. "Didn't they say to make ourselves at home?" Giles wisely chose not to reply.

Once he was finished with his beer, Spike resumed his circuit of the room and the surrounding areas. After nearly an hour of seeing him meander through her peripheral vision, Buffy finally snapped.

"Oh my god!" she cried frustratingly, startling the rest of the group. She slammed her book onto the table and stood up, marching over to where Spike stood next to a bookshelf, snatched the figurine he'd been looking at out of his hand and replacing it on the shelf, grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt and dragged him back over to the table. She spun around the chair he'd been sitting on and shoved him down to sit in it properly, then grabbed one of the heavier volumes from the pile in the middle of the table and hurled it toward his lap. Spike caught it just before it could crush any of his more delicate parts, giving Buffy a warning glare.

"There!" she exclaimed. "Sit. Still." She turned and sat back in her chair, pulling the book back into her lap. "Good god. A.D.D. much?" she rolled her eyes at the vampire.

Spike sighed in an entirely overdramatic way, then acquiesced and opened his book. After a few minutes, he actually reached forward and grabbed one of the yellow legal pads from off the table, and began writing down anything he thought might be pertinent.

Buffy glanced over at him. "You're left handed," she sounded surprised.

"Mm-hmm," he replied, without looking up from what he was writing.

"I never noticed that."

This time he did meet her gaze. "What, you never noticed that I punch with my left hand? Stake with my left hand? Throw with my left hand?"

Buffy shook her head, for some reason almost feeling bad that she hadn't noticed.

"Didn't notice that I do other things with my left hand?" he leered, then tilted the book he held in his lap up so it concealed said left hand. He then held his hand behind the book, palm up, and slowly extended his first and middle fingers into an obviously lewd gesture, then wiggling his thumb against an imaginary something. Buffy's eyes widened as his meaning became clear, then blushed furiously. She turned back to her own book, muttering something about him being a pig. Spike chuckled, then returned to his own research.

By late afternoon, their research had yielded nothing except for eyestrain and further boredom. But then, several of the X-Men began walking through the dining room that served as the Scooby research station, each of them heading in the same direction with seeming purpose. That, and they were all dressed in what the Scoobies assumed were their uniforms, featuring much black leather and combat gear.

The one called Rogue stopped at the table, gathering up her hair in a ponytail. "Hey ya'll! You look like you could use a--"

"Oh, GOD yes!"

"Please!"

"Anything to end this torture!"

"--break," she finished laughing. "Well, if ya want, you can come with us down to the Danger Room. We have a training sequence scheduled for four o'clock if you wanna watch."

"Danger Room?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," Rogue replied. "It's like…a really fancy gym, except instead of weights and treadmills there's holographic enemies that we have to fight."

"Holographic? But how could you fight holograms?" Willow asked, obviously interested.

"Don't ask me, sugah," Rogue laughed. "Ah have absolutely no idea how any of it works. All Ah know is that it's technology borrowed from our alien allies the Shi'Ar, and that the holograms can hit you back. So you wanna come and see it?"

After a collective "Oh yeah!" from the group, they cheerfully abandoned their research and followed the rest of the X-Men to an elevator, which obviously took them quite far beneath the ground judging by the length of the trip, then stepped out into a place that put the Initiative to shame.

"Holy crap," was Xander's astute observation.

The space was huge, and one hundred percent technology. None of the Scoobies could even pretend to begin to comprehend what anything was. They were led to an observation-type room, which looked down into what they presumed was the Danger Room. The X-Men were gathered toward the center of the room, looking up expectantly toward the window.

Professor X addressed the team assembled below through an intercom. "All right, for this exercise, Cyclops and Storm are team leads. You are to infiltrate and destroy the enemy's heavily guarded arsenal. They will be human, but in the possession of performance-enhancing body armor and lethal force weapons. Begin." And with that, the Professor pressed several buttons, and before their very eyes, the Danger Room began to shimmer and change, creating a space that was far larger than the room actually was, and suddenly, the X-Men below were under attack.

Everyone, even Spike, looked on in awe as they saw the mutants using their powers in action for the first time. They watched as Storm called down the power of the elements, striking her opponents with lighting or sending them flying with hurricane force winds. They gaped as Cyclops effortlessly blasted a hole the size of a house through solid steel with his optic blast. They observed the obvious team dynamic as Rogue flew down and grabbed one of their opponents, lifting him in the air as Iceman locked him in a case of ice, then Gambit charged a playing card and threw it at him, exploding on contact and shattering both the ice which surrounded him and his body armor, but leaving the man inside relatively unharmed.

As the minutes passed, Buffy began to get more and more antsy watching the battle. She wanted to play, too. A glance at Spike confirmed that he was feeling the same way. They were both itching to fight.

Soon, the exercise was complete, the X-Men the victors. The Danger Room shimmered once again, and reverted to the large nondescript place it had been before.

"Well done, my X-Men," the Professor said. The team left the Danger Room, and streamed into the observation area.  
  
"So whatcha think?" Rogue asked.

"I wanna play!" Buffy piped up before anyone could say anything.

"Yeah, count me in, too!" Spike chimed in. "Been forever since me and the Slayer've seen a decent spot of violence."

Giles frowned at that. Hadn't they said they'd seen some action the night before? They had certainly looked as though they'd fought something. Before he could make any comment, however, the Professor was asking Buffy if she was sure she wanted to try it.

"Oh hell yes!" she replied excitedly. At everyone's puzzled looks, she continued, "It's just that, after sitting still for so long doing all that reading and writing and research, I've got some energy to burn off."

"Well, if you're sure you're up to it, what would you like to do? Is there any particular kind of training you usually do?"

"Just gimme something I can kill," Spike said.

Before anyone--meaning Xander--could say anything, Buffy jumped in. "What he means is, in our kind of fighting, we don't have much use for non-lethal methods. Using them would actually get us killed."

"Yes, I think I understand," said the Professor. "Well, I'm sure we could accommodate something for you. By all means," he gestured to the door which would lead them down to the Danger Room.

"Hey cool!" exclaimed Iceman. "We get to see the Slayer in action!"

"Yes, I must admit, I'd like to see what your charge can do as well," the Professor said to Giles.

"You know, it's been so long, I would like to see it myself," he replied.

And so, as the X-Men and Scoobies watched, Buffy and Spike entered the Danger Room, waiting for the holograms to emerge.

Spike was bouncing on the balls of his feet, the adrenaline already pumping. "You ready, luv?"

Buffy looked over to him, glint in her eye and smirk on her face, then moved into a fighting stance.

Suddenly, they were in a completely alien surrounding, and judging by the looks of their attackers, quite possibly on an alien world. They were green, they were ugly, and they were mean. Absolutely perfect.

With a yell and a growl, Buffy and Spike threw themselves into battle, fists, feet, and fangs flying. At first there were so many of their opponents, that Buffy and Spike lost sight of each other in the melee. But soon, after Spike had relieved one of the creatures of his sword and ran him through with it, he caught sight of the Slayer fighting off four of the creatures at once. As he stopped for a moment to admire the beauty of her fight, he was caught unawares as a large group of the creatures jumped on him at once, pummeling him. With a demonic roar, Spike vamped out and threw them off him as a whole, and began tearing into them with renewed vigor.

As their attackers' numbers slowly decreased, Buffy and Spike began interacting with each other as well as with their opponents. They danced around the room, trading banter and weapons. Giles almost had a heart attack as Spike pulled a knife out of his boot and threw it at Buffy's head, but she turned at the last moment and snatched the knife out of the air, then spun around to slice open one of the creatures' neck. Soon, their opponents' numbers had dwindled down to seven, and it became clear that Buffy and Spike were playing with them, just to keep them around and not end the fight. Buffy was fighting off four, Spike three, and they were both allowing themselves to be backed toward the other, letting their opponents think they were gaining the upper hand. Then, in a blindingly fast move just as their backs touched, Spike grabbed Buffy under her arms and swung her around, as she kicked all three of the creatures he'd been fighting in their heads, sending them to the ground. As Spike released her, she stabbed them each in the chest with the knife in succession, then turned to watch Spike dispatch the last of them.

Buffy flung Spike's knife to the ground, the blade sticking into holographic dirt, and Spike tossed his pilfered sword onto the chest of one of the felled creatures. Buffy and Spike then turned to face the other, chests heaving and eyes locking. Above them, just as Professor X was about to end the simulation, they suddenly flew at each other, grappling for purchase, then Buffy grabbed hold of Spike's lapels and threw him across the room.

"Good lord!" Giles exclaimed, watching, horrified, as Buffy and Spike began to fight each other with more ferocity than they'd shown against their holographic opponents.

"Oh my god, what are they doing?" cried Willow.

"That son of a bitch!" yelled Xander, then he turned to go after them.

"Wait!" yelled Dawn. Xander stopped and looked at her, as did everyone else in the room. "If you guys would just wait a second and look!" she pointed to the window, "Does it look like they're trying to kill each other?"

As a whole, everyone turned to watch the fighting pair below. Indeed, it did not look as though they were trying to kill each other. Rather, it looked more like they were…dancing. With speed and strength that only the other could match, Buffy and Spike were trading blows as though they'd been choreographed. Spike had maneuvered Buffy into a headlock, which she quickly broke by stepping back and throwing him over her shoulder. He recovered in time to block the back spin kick Buffy had sent toward his head, then grabbed her leg and threw her to the ground. She quickly jumped up, then went at Spike in a dead run, leaping into the air and scissoring her legs around his neck, using her own body as leverage to flip him onto his back. She straddled his chest and mimed staking him, but he grabbed her wrist before it landed and kicked his legs up and out, somersaulting backwards and reversing their positions. He was just about to dive in for the "kill," when suddenly he realized they were back on the cold metal floor of the Danger Room.

He looked down at Buffy, face flushed and chest heaving beneath him, and couldn't resist grinding his raging hard-on against her mound, causing her to moan and her eyes to flutter. Before he could get himself into any further trouble, the doors to the Danger Room opened and the Scoobies and X-Men flooded in. Grimacing at the uncomfortably tight state of his jeans, Spike backed off and stood, reaching down a hand to Buffy, which she grasped and pulled herself up.

At the questioning look of her former Watcher, Buffy asked innocently, "What?"

"What exactly was that?"

"We were sparring. No big. It's actually kind of a nice side-effect of his chip not working on me, helps me keep from getting rusty," she shrugged.

"You're saying you've done this with each other before?" asked an incredulous Giles.

"Well, yeah," Spike snorted. "How do you think we found out about the chip not working in the first place, Rupert?"

"It's really okay Giles," Buffy reassured her still-flustered Watcher. "As you could probably tell, I could take Spike easily," she grinned smugly.

"Oh, right, so that's why I had you pinned about to--"  
  
"About to what, exactly?" Giles cut Spike off coldly.

Spike fixed him with a disdainful stare. "About to win the soddin' fight."

"Look, it's fine, I'm fine, Spike's fine," Buffy sighed, hoping to end this little tiff. "I think we should probably get back to researching now that we've got our excess energy burnt off, don't you?"

"Yes, that would probably be for the--"

"OH no! Uh-uh, no sir!" Rogue drawled as she stepped into the midst of the group. "Ya'll have had enough of those musty ol' books for the day, Ah think."

The Cajun called Gambit sidled up next to her, sliding his arm around her waist. "I couldn't agree more wit' ma belle chere. It's past five o'clock in de evenin.' Ya know what dat means, neh?"

Buffy frowned and exchanged confused glances with her fellow Scoobies, except Spike, who had an amused smirk on his face. "What?" she asked.

Spike's smirk widened into a grin, shared with the Cajun. They answered together:  
  
"Happy hour."

"Hell yeah, it is," Rogue grinned. "Just give us all ten minutes to change and we're goin' ta Harry's"

The X-Men ushered the Scoobies out the door, Xander's confused voice echoing in the steel halls, "What's a 'harries'?"

After about twenty minutes, the entourage of vehicles containing the two groups pulled off of the single-lane road they had been traveling and into a small parking lot, filled with one or two other cars and motorcycles. Everyone stepped out into the frigid winter evening air, the X-Men directing the gazes of the others to the cozy-looking log construct before them, warm yellow light spilling from the square windows and sounds of a jukebox trickling out to their ears.

"This," chimed Iceman, "is the famous Harry's Hideaway."

Buffy raised her brows. She didn't know about famous, but the place sure looked warm, and therefore very wonderful to her. "Yeah, famous, great!" she cheered. "Let's go inside," she rushed out as she walked briskly to the door. Giles smiled at his Slayer's obvious distaste for the cold.

Everyone followed inside, and the Scoobies immediately liked the bar's intimate atmosphere. Cyclops came to the front of the group and addressed them. "This place is a safe haven, for mutants and humans alike. Nobody judges, and best of all, nobody fights." At this, he offered a pointed stare at Wolverine and Spike. At least, Spike assumed he was looking at him. Kind of hard to tell with the red glasses.

The large group settled into a corner booth and two of the nearby tables. Drinks were ordered, and everyone gratefully relaxed, easing into idle chatter and laughter. Wolverine took his beer up to sit at the bar by himself, presumably to watch the hockey game on the T.V. suspended in the corner, which Buffy thought would be best for everyone. She herself sat at one of the small tables with Spike and Dawn, the latter of whom was fidgeting with the plastic band that had been given to her at the door to indicate her minor status.

"I don't see why I had to get one of these," she groused. "I highly doubt Bobby is twenty-one, and I know Kitty isn't." She fixed a pointed glare on Buffy. "Or you, for that matter."

Buffy smiled and shook her head, a little amazed of her sister's ability to remember all these new names and the people to which they belonged. "I thought you said only losers drink alcohol."

Dawn shrugged. "Well, maybe I want to be a loser."

Spike smiled wryly and lifted his mug of beer. He tossed the Slayer a questioning glance, which she answered with a shrug. He set the mug in front of Dawn. "Here, bit. You can share mine."

"Really?" she asked, questioning her sister with her eyes.

"Yeah, really," Spike drawled.

When met with no argument from Buffy, Dawn grinned and took a healthy swallow of the amber liquid. Her face immediately went blank, and she carefully slid the mug back over to Spike. She glared at the other two at the table, both of whom were having a hard time keeping straight faces.

"You could have just told me it tasted like piss," she huffed.

"But where's the fun in that?" Buffy laughed.

"Yeah," Spike continued. "Best way to learn something is to do it yourself, innit?"

"Shut up."

The hours went by unnoticed, as everyone got to know each other better. Xander and Bobby played several rounds of pool before returning to their seats to order more drinks. Dawn and Kitty had gone to try their hand at darts. Willow and Tara were talking with Jean and Ororo. Buffy was chatting animatedly with Rogue, each of them sharing amusing stories of how their great strength had gotten them into awkward situations.

"Oh mah gawd," Rogue giggled uncontrollably. "So ya just had ta leave it like that?"

"Uh huh," Buffy mumbled around her fifth mug of beer. "Yogurt piling up into a big goopy mountain. I tossed the handle into the salad bar," she laughed.

"Oh my god," a slightly inebriated Xander stumbled into the conversation. "Super strong hot chick alert! You guys should totally mud wrestle!"

"Bad move, Xan-man!" Bobby leaned up against his new drinking buddy. "Rogue in a bikini, while a beautiful sight, is a very dangerous thing."

"Shut up, Bobby!" Rogue yelled, punching him in the gut for good measure. She grinned at his 'whoomf' as he doubled over. "Sadly, that's true, sugah. Wouldn't want ya ta get zapped unconscious, now would we?"

"Nope, don't think so."

"Ooh! I got it!" Xander practically jumped up and down. "Arm wrestling! See who's the ultimate super strong hot chick!"

Buffy and Rogue exchanged amused glances, then Buffy turned to answer. "Sorry, Xand, but seeing as Rogue here regularly bench-presses army tanks, I think I'm just gonna hand the title over to her."

"Poo," he pouted. "And here I was hopin' for some serious girl-on-girl action. Ooh, wait! What about Spike?"

Spike, who up until that point had been sitting back, drinking his god awful American beer and enjoying watching his Slayer be happy and carefree, sat up suddenly. "Hey! I hope you're not so snockered that you're thinkin' I'm a soddin' skirt, now!"

Xander waved impatiently at him. "No, no. I'm saying, you and Buffy should arm-wrestle! See who's stronger once and for all--vampire or Slayer!"

Spike narrowed his eyes, glancing at Buffy and then back up to the boy. "Well, now, that's hardly fair, now is it? I'm a southpaw, and Buffy's not. Either way one of us would be playing with our more dominant hand."

"Aw, c'mon, Spikey," Buffy mewed in an entirely too flirtatious way, causing him to swing his head around to look at her fully. "I'm sure I could take you with either one of my hands tied behind my back," she said coyly, the meaning unmistakable to Spike, even if the rest of the room was oblivious.

Buffy's sudden boldness, inspired by her relaxing and altogether good day, and, she had to admit, the slight buzz of alcohol in her blood, made almost all of Spike's blood rush to his groin. He bit back a moan, then replied, "You're on, Slayer."

The two sat up in their chairs, facing each other and propping their left arms onto the table and their right arms braced against their legs. The interested mix of X-Men and Scoobies turned to watch, eager to see who came out the victor. Buffy and Spike loosely clasped hands, eyeing each other over their knuckles.

"Okay," said Xander. "Ready…set…GO!"

The pair immediately tightened their grip on the other, the battle for dominance begun. At first it seemed that they were doing nothing at all, their arms remained in the same exact place. Then, after several minutes, their arms began to quake slightly with the effort each was putting into pushing the other down. Buffy and Spike continued to hold each other's gaze, playful glints dancing behind their eyes. Eventually, Spike began to give, Buffy pushing his hand two inches to the left. Spike quirked his eyebrow at her, the set his jaw and pushed their hands back to vertical, then about two inches to his left. They continued on like that, give and take, for a few minutes, and then they each noticed that Xander had started taking bids on who was going to win. Buffy met Spike's eyes and rolled her eyes good-naturedly, making him smile.

The genuine grin on his lips suddenly made Buffy very, very happy. So happy, in fact, that it also made her kind of…playful. She shot Spike an evil grin as she slipped her foot out of her boot, Spike eyeing her suspiciously. Those eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she began sliding her foot up his leg, her tiny toes gripping the denim of his jeans. His eyes widened even more as she reached her ultimate goal, rubbing the sole of her foot firmly against his erection. The entire time, above the table, Buffy had been gaining the advantage, the distracted Spike losing an inch for every stroke of her foot.

Spike's right hand came up to grip the edge of the table, the wood splintering slightly beneath his grip. Spike glared warningly at her, to which her only response was a small giggle. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes, reopening them to see Buffy's pink tongue come out to moisten her smirking lips.

The growl started low in his chest, so low that nobody save the woman in front of him even noticed. The sound slowly rose in volume, causing Wolverine to look back over his shoulder to study the scene behind him. The chatting and laughing group quieted down as they themselves became aware of the noise coming from the vampire. Spike's eyes began to glow amber slightly, even as they still held the Slayers. He could smell the excitement coming off her in waves, see the flush in her cheeks as the blood rushed to her face and chest. They both began to breathe more heavily, nearly panting as they struggled in their both seen and unseen battle for dominance.

Suddenly, the rumbling in Spike's chest tore out of his throat, the demonic roar emerging even as did his game face. The sudden surge of strength and adrenaline allowed Spike to throw his weight behind his shoulder, giving him the upper hand needed to send the Slayer's slamming down on the table. Everybody jumped, startled at this sudden and seemingly unexpected turn of events. Everybody save Buffy, of course.

She still held Spike's amber gaze, her hand still pressed beneath his. In a flash, Spike was up and out of his chair, striding to and out the door. Everyone stared after his exit for a moment, then turned to look at a somewhat sheepish Buffy.

"I better go get him," she smiled, rolling her eyes. "Think I may have hurt his vampy macho pride," she said as she casually slipped her boot back on, grabbing her coat before following Spike out the door.

The group remained silent for a beat, then Xander sighed.

"All right," he said. "To Dawn and Gambit go the spoils."

Outside, Buffy slipped her coat on against the icy winds, scanning the area for her vampire. She followed his trail to around behind Harry's, then further back to what appeared to be the bar's storage shed. She found him, still in game face, puffing furiously on a cigarette. The fierce look he sent her when he noticed her arrival knocked the breath from her lungs. The sight had her positively drenched.

Spike took one last drag, then flicked the butt angrily to the ground, closing the distance between them in three long strides. He didn't check his speed until his hand reached out before him, grabbing Buffy's face by the jaw and dragging her forward for a searing kiss, tongues immediately out to play. He grabbed the lapels of her coat and swung her around, shoving her bodily up against the wooden wall of the shed, never breaking the seal of their lips. As Buffy's tongue gently traced along the razor points of his elongated canines, Spike ripped his mouth away and spoke very softly to her.

"You realize, of course, that you brought this on yourself."

And with that, he spun her around again, turning her to the side and placing his hand between her shoulder blades, shoving her forward over a packing crate. Buffy couldn't help the delighted gasp that escaped her lips as her cheek hit the rough wood, nor the moan when he slid his hand between her jean-clad thighs.

"God," he whispered huskily. "There's practically steam coming off you, you're so hot and wet, you little slut." They both groaned as he began rubbing back and forth, pressing her engorged clit into the seam of her jeans again and again. He reached around the front of her, quickly undoing the button and zipper, before turning to his own fastenings. As he ripped open his buckle and fly, he saw Buffy's hands slip inside her waistband and shimmy the tight jeans down over her hips, just enough to make room for him.

"Ahh…that's my girl," he hissed as he reached out to stroke the smooth cheeks of her ass. "My nasty little slut…just for me, aren't you, luv?" He slipped two fingers in between her dripping folds, sliding wetly against her clit.

"Mmmmyeeaaahhh…" Buffy sighed.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you? First makin' me get all antsy sittin' there doin' that soddin' research," he punctuated his last word with a sudden flick across her clit, making her cry out. "Then gettin' me all worked up with that absolutely beautiful rough n' tumble in the danger whatever," another twist, another gasp. "And finally you pull that little stunt in the bar. If I didn't know any better I'd swear you were lookin' for a good hard shag with the Big Bad here." And with that final observation, he positioned his throbbing cock against her soaking entrance, and in once smooth stroke, slammed himself home.

They both cried out at their union, struggling to adjust and maintain some control over their bodies. Buffy smiled shakily. "F-figured me out, baby."

Spike breathed out a chuckle, then grasped her hips in his hands and plowed into her again. And again. And again.

Buffy gripped the edges of the crate she was splayed across, a gasping "Hunh!" escaping her lips with every one of Spike's powerful thrusts. The sound made Spike crazy, wanting nothing more than to do something to her to make that noise over and over again. His thrusting increased in tempo, sending both of them into a frenzy of feeling as the both forgot where they were, who they were, everything except the feeling of him entering her.

Spike clenched his jaw, breathing heavily through his nose, already so close to coming after the whirl of arousal she had whipped him into, and slid his hand down her abdomen, into the curling thatch of hair and further still between her swollen folds, slippery with both of them, and rubbed her clit gently.

It was all she needed. Buffy came violently, her mouth open in a wordless shout as her entire body quaked, her muscles clamping down on Spike's cock, and that was all he needed. Spike rammed his hips into her buttocks as his come pumped into her, being milked for all he was worth, the growl tearing forth from his lips. He collapsed against Buffy's back, both of them panting heavily. Spike's game face melted away in his afterglow, and he chuckled.

"Thanks," he swallowed thickly, then sighed, "I needed that."

Buffy giggled as well as she could with however many pounds of vampire sprawled across her back. "Noo….thank YOU!"

They laughed as Spike eased out of her, his nostrils flaring as he appreciated their combined scents. They helped each other situate their clothing, hoping nothing looked too out of place, and headed back inside. They rejoined the group at their table, ordered another round of drinks, and enjoyed the rest of the evening...neither one noticing the glares being thrown at them from Wolverine.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, first of all, big huge honkin' thanks to everybody (or anybody) who is still reading this. I hope you enjoyed the new chapter. I don't write fight scenes very much, so I hope it was convincing. Secondly, big huge honkin' apologies to anyone who is also reading my AU fic, The Marching Razorbacks. I've been having a hard time getting into the AU Fantasy space. I've just been feeling Vamp!Spike and Slayer!Buffy more than their human alter-egos. But I promise I haven't given up on it, just working through some writer blockage. I'm working on a new story following canon, but it's a bit darker than my other stuff so I probably won't be posting it here, more likely on another site by the same name except with the word 'adult' in front of it. I'll let my readers here know where I post it if anyone is interested. Okay, that said, I have to say this: AARGH! Dammit! Yes, nitpick, I did in fact mean "heroin" rather than "heroine." All of my stories are un-beta'd, as I have no beta. So I'm very sorry and even more annoyed with myself for any typos and grammar errors. Curses…CURRRSESSS! (think MojoJojo.)

Lata!  
Coquine


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